Pigeons at War

W/O MacKinnon holds his Coastal Command's B-24 Liberator's two carrier pigeons.

Homing pigeons have long played an important role in war. Due to their homing ability, speed, and altitude, they were often used as military messengers. Carrier pigeons of the Racing Homer breed were used to carry messages in World War I and World War II, and 32 such pigeons were presented with the Dickin Medal. Medals such as the Croix de Guerre, awarded to Cher Ami, and the Dickin Medal awarded to the pigeons G.I. Joe and Paddy, amongst 32 others, have been awarded to pigeons for their services in saving human lives.

During World War I and World War II, carrier pigeons were used to transport messages back to their home coop behind the lines. When they landed, wires in the coop would sound a bell or buzzer and a soldier of the Signal Corps would know a message had arrived. The soldier would go to the coop, remove the message from the canister, and send it to its destination by telegraph, field phone, or personal messenger.

A carrier pigeon's job was dangerous. Nearby, enemy soldiers often tried to shoot down pigeons, knowing that released birds were carrying important messages. Some of these pigeons became quite famous amongst the infantrymen for whom they worked. One pigeon, named “Spike”, flew 52 missions without receiving a single wound. Another, named Cher Ami, lost his foot and one eye, but his message got through, saving a large group of surrounded American infantrymen.

Before the advent of radio, carrier pigeons were frequently used on the battlefield as a means for a mobile force to communicate with a stationary headquarters. In the sixth century BC, Cyrus, king of Persia, used carrier pigeons to communicate with various parts of his empire. In Ancient Rome, Julius Caesar used pigeons to send messages to the territory of Gaul.

During the 19th-century (1870–71) Franco-Prussian War, besieged Parisians used carrier pigeons to transmit messages outside the city; in response, the besieging Prussian Army employed hawks to hunt the pigeons. The French military used balloons to transport homing pigeons past enemy lines. Microfilm images containing hundreds of messages allowed letters to be carried into Paris by pigeon from as far away as London. More than one million different messages traveled this way during the four-month siege. They were then discovered to be very useful, and carrier pigeons were well considered in military theory leading up to World War I.

Homing pigeons were used extensively during World War I. In 1914, during the First Battle of the Marne, the French army advanced 72 pigeon lofts with the troops. The US Army Signal Corps used 600 pigeons in France alone.

One of their homing pigeons, a Blue Check cock named Cher Ami, was awarded the French "Croix de Guerre with Palm” for heroic service delivering 12 important messages during the Battle of Verdun. On his final mission in October 1918, he delivered a message despite having been shot through the breast or wing. The crucial message, found in the capsule hanging from a ligament of his shattered leg, saved 194 US soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division's “Lost Battalion".

United States Navy aviators maintained 12 pigeon stations in France, with a total inventory of 1,508 pigeons when the war ended. Pigeons were carried in airplanes to rapidly return messages to these stations, and 829 birds flew in 10,995 wartime aircraft patrols. Airmen of the 230 patrols with messages entrusted to pigeons threw the message-carrying pigeon either up or down, depending on the type of aircraft, to keep the pigeon out of the propeller and away from airflow toward the aircraft wings and struts. Eleven of the thrown pigeons went missing in action, but the remaining 219 messages were delivered successfully.

Pigeons were considered an essential element of naval aviation communication when the first United States aircraft carrier USS Langley was commissioned on 20 March 1922, so the ship included a pigeon house on the stern. The pigeons were trained at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard while Langley was undergoing conversion. As long as the pigeons were released a few at a time for exercise, they returned to the ship; but when the whole flock was released while Langley was anchored off Tangier Island, the pigeons flew south and roosted in the cranes of the Norfolk shipyard. The pigeons never went to sea again.

During World War II, the United Kingdom used about 250,000 homing pigeons for many purposes, including communicating with those behind enemy lines such as Belgian spy Jozef Raskin. The Dickin Medal, the highest possible decoration for valor given to animals, was awarded to 32 pigeons, including the United States Army Pigeon Service's G.I. Joe and the Irish pigeon Paddy.

The UK maintained the Air Ministry Pigeon Section during World War II and for a while thereafter. A Pigeon Policy Committee made decisions about the uses of pigeons in military contexts. The head of the section, Lea Rayner, reported in 1945 that pigeons could be trained to deliver small explosives or bioweapons to precise targets. The ideas were not taken up by the committee, and in 1948 the UK military stated that pigeons were of no further use. During the war, messenger pigeons could draw a special allowance of corn and seed, but as soon as the war ended this had been cancelled and anyone keeping pigeons would have to draw on their own personal rationed corn and seed to also feed the pigeons. However, the UK security service MI5 was still concerned about the use of pigeons by enemy forces. Until 1950, they arranged for 100 birds to be maintained by a civilian pigeon fancier in order to prepare for any eventuality. The Swiss army disbanded its Pigeon section in 1996.

In 2010, Indian police expressed suspicion that a recently captured pigeon from Pakistan might have been carrying a message from Pakistan. In 2015, a pigeon from Pakistan was logged into Indian records as a "suspected spy". In May 2020, another suspected Pakistani spy pigeon was captured by Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. After finding nothing suspicious, India authorities released the pigeon back into Pakistan.

In 2016, a Jordanian border official said at a news conference that Islamic State militants were using homing pigeons to deliver messages to operatives outside its "so called caliphate".

In total, 32 pigeons were decorated with the Dickin Medal including:

Winkie (1943)

Commando (1944)

Paddy (1944)

William of Orange (1944)

Mary of Exeter (1945)

G.I. Joe (1946)

Gustav (1944)

Beach Comber (1944)

 

Canadian PO (A) S Jess, wireless operator of a Lancaster bomber operating from Waddington, Lincolnshire carrying two pigeon boxes. Homing pigeons served as a means of communications in the event of a crash, ditching or radio failure. October 1942.

The seven man crew of an Avro Lancaster bomber wait near the crew room at Waddington, Lincolnshire for transport out to their aircraft. The pigeons seen in boxes in the foreground are homing pigeons carried for communication purposes in case of ditching or radio failure. October 1942.

Royal Blue receiving his Dickin Medal. The first pigeon to deliver a message from a downed aircraft on the continent was one with a royal pedigree. This was Royal Blue who came from the royal lofts. He flew 120 miles in 4 hours and 10 minutes on the 10 October 1940 after the aircraft he was on had been forced to make a landing in occupied Netherlands. Delivering his message with the aircrew's whereabouts he was awarded the Dickin Medal in March 1945.

Winkie the pigeon with PDSA founder Maria Dickin. Winkie. The first pigeon to receive the Dickin Medal was Winkie, she served with No. 42 Squadron, RAF Leuchars and with a number of sorties already completed it would be for her actions on the 23rd February 1942 that earned her the award. On this day the Bristol Beaufort she was on was returning from a sortie over Norway where it had been subject to flak and damaged. Whilst trying to return to their home base the aircraft was too badly damaged and ditched into the North Sea. As a result of the impact Winkie's cage opened and her instincts kicked in and she flew the 120 miles home. When she returned to her loft covered in oil and exhausted she didn't have a message detailing the crew's location. Despite this the Royal Air Force were able to work out where the aircraft could be by the birds time of arrival and other factors which enabled the crew of four to be rescued. To show their appreciation a dinner was held by No. 42 Squadron with Winkie the guest of honor and on the 2 December 1943 she received her Dickin Medal.

One of the very first recipients of the Dickin Medal was White Vision, she was serving with No. 190 Squadron, RAF Sullom Voe when on the 11 October 1943 the Consolidated PBY Catalina she was in had to ditch in the North Sea. With the radio of the aircraft out of action and other aircraft unable to see the crew due to bad visibility, which was down to 100 yards, a message detailing the crew's location was sealed in her leg canister. White Vision was then released and flying against a formidable headwind she arrived back at her loft. With the details of the crew's location the search was underway again and after 18 hours in the North Sea all eleven members of the crew were finally rescued. She would receive her Dickin Medal on the 2 December 1943.

Gustav receives his Dickin Medal from Mrs AV Alexander with W/C Rayner and Cpl Randall. Serving aboard an Allied warship during Operation Overlord off the Normandy coast on the 6th June 1944, Gustav would bring the first message of the landings back to the United Kingdom. He had been one of six carrier pigeons issued to Montague Taylor a war correspondent for Reuters by the Royal Air Force. With a headwind, sometimes as much as 30 mph, and a 150 mile journey ahead, Gustav arrived with his message 5 hours 16 minutes later at RAF Thorney Island. He was awarded his Dickin Medal on the 17 November 1944. The message delivered by Gustav read: “We are just 20 miles or so off the beaches. First assault troops landed 0750. Signal says no interference from enemy gunfire on beach... Steaming steadily in formation. Lightnings, Typhoons, Fortresses crossing since 0545. No enemy aircraft seen.”

GI Joe with its Dickin Medal which was awarded in August 1946. “This bird is credited with making the most outstanding flight by a USA Army Pigeon in World War II. Making the 20 mile flight from British 10th Army HQ, in the same number of minutes, it brought a message which arrived just in time to save the lives of at least 100 Allied soldiers from being bombed by their own planes.”

War Pigeon Carrier at the History on Wheels Museum, Eton Wick, Windsor, UK. The pigeon would be released from this carrying important messages back home.

War pigeon G.I. Joe mounted and on display at Fort Monmouth.

Examination and treatment of Army pigeons at the Signal Pigeon Center Tidworth, England, UK. This was a part of the European theater's veterinary program to obtain and maintain an efficient Army Pigeon Service in the armies and divisions in continental Europe.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944. Chief Warrant Laity instructing class.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944. Releasing pigeons.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944. Loading K-ship before patrol flights.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944. Serving the pigeons.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944. Disbursing pigeons to K-ship for patrol flight.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944. Releasing pigeons. Note dog in the background.

WAVE pigeoneers in training, February 15, 1944. Muster in front of cages.

The crew of a Lockheed Hudson Mark I, N7318, of No. 206 Squadron RAF which rescued the Commander in Chief of Free Polish Forces, General Władysław Sikorski and his staff from Bordeaux, France, in June 1940, gather by the door of their aircraft at Bircham Newton, Norfolk. They are (left to right): Leading Aircraftman Garrity (from USA), navigator; Flight-Lieutenant W Biddle, pilot; unknown; Leading Aircraftman W D "Spike" Caulfield, wireless operator/air gunner, who holds a wicker carrier containing a homing pigeon.

The crew of a Lockheed Hudson of No. 224 Squadron RAF, prepare to board their aircraft at Leuchars, Fife. The wireless operator/air gunner (far right) is carrying his log book, rations and a homing pigeon in a wicker carrier for emergency communications.

Norwegian airman John Ryg with pigeon, Grimbergen, 1944.

A pigeon in a sling ready for a jump with a US paratrooper.

Crewmen of Consolidated Liberator GR Mark VA, BZ818 'C', of No. 53 Squadron RAF handling carriers containing homing pigeons at St Eval, Cornwall, after a patrol over the Bay of Biscay. Sergeant J Knapp of Toronto, Canada, (in the hatchway) hands a carrier to Sergeant W Tatum of London, while Warrant Officer A Mackinnon of Auckland, New Zealand, holds a second carrier.

An aircrew sergeant of No. 209 Squadron RAF about to launch a carrier pigeon from the side hatch of a Saro Lerwick flying boat.

Homing pigeons, in their containers, being fed by the airman responsible for their care at St Eval, Cornwall.

Two Canadian soldiers strap a basket to the back of an Airedale dog during a training exercise, somewhere in Britain. The basket contains carrier pigeons. 1940.

A message written on rice paper is put into a container and attached to a carrier pigeon by members of 61st Division Signals at Ballymena, Northern Ireland, 3 July 1941. (Imperial War Museum)

Half-buried, a camouflaged combat loft at the Anzio beachhead, Italy. 

Men of the 21st Signal Loft release pigeons in March 1943.

A paratrooper releases a pigeon in training for the Normandy invasion.

The Kaiser, captured from World War I Germans and used for World War II breeding.

Pigeons in a mobile loft during training in the Carolinas.

Title page, US Army Air Forces technical manual, "Handling and Releasing Homing Pigeons from Aircraft in Flight", T.O. 01-1-120, August 1, 1943.

From "Handling and Releasing Homing Pigeons from Aircraft In Flight".

From "Handling and Releasing Homing Pigeons from Aircraft In Flight".

A Finnish soldier releases a pigeon.

Finnish soldiers working with pigeons.

Finnish soldier with pigeons.

Torokina, Bougainville Island. January 20, 1945. Lance Sergeant V. Blandin, 7th Pigeon Section "B" Corps of Signals, using a mobile loft to train young message carrying pigeons.