Pigeons and World War One
Pigeons played a vital part in World War One as they proved to be an extremely reliable way of sending messages. Such was the importance of pigeons that over 100,000 were used in the war with an astonishing success rate of 95% getting through to their destination with their message.
Pigeons were used extensively in World War One. Man-made communication systems were still crude and unreliable, so dogs and pigeons were used. Pigeons would have been found just about anywhere on the Western Front. At the First Battle of the Marne in 1914, French troops stopped the German advance on Paris. As the French troops advanced and pushed back the Germans, so their pigeons advanced with them. In the heat and disorientation of battle, pigeons proved to be the best way of sending messages to the French headquarters. At the Marne, the French had 72 pigeon lofts. As the French advanced, the lofts advanced with them - but many of the pigeons were 'on duty' carrying messages and could never have known where their loft had moved to. Incredibly, all the pigeons at the Marne returned to their lofts - despite the fact that they would have flown 'blind' not knowing where their loft was.
This ability to get home was vital for those who used them as messengers. A pigeon's great strength was not only its extraordinary homing instinct but also the speed at which it flew. Shooting one down would have been all but impossible. In many senses, a pigeon would always get through. The only natural way to counter them was to bring birds of prey to the front line and let one of nature's great battles occur.
A falcon could bring down a pigeon - a marksman almost certainly could
not.
An apocryphal tale about pigeons is as follows:
In October 1918, as the war neared its end, 194 American soldiers found themselves trapped by German soldiers. They were cut off from other Allied soldiers and had no working radios. The only chance they had of alerting anybody about their desperate situation was to send a pigeon with their co-ordinates attacked to its leg. The pigeon's name was Cher Ami. When released it flew 25 miles from behind German lines to the Americans headquarters. Cher Ami covered the 25 miles in just 25 minutes. The pigeon was, in fact, shot through the chest by the Germans but continued to fly home. With the "Lost Battalion's" co-ordinates, the Americans launched a rescue and the 194 men were saved. Cher Ami was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm for its astonishing flight. As with other pigeons, it would not have known where the American's nearest headquarters was - its natural homing instincts took over.
Honoured: the WW1 pigeons who earned their wings
By Jasper Copping
A new exhibition highlights the contribution made by messenger pigeons in both world wars, when they were credited with saving thousands of lives and altering the course of battles.
Locked in combat in the mud of the Battle of Passchendaele in October 1917, British troops needed to get an urgent signal back to their headquarters from the front line.
A messenger was despatched on a journey which should have taken 20 minutes. But shortly after setting off, while near the Menin Road – a notoriously vulnerable ridge – the courier came under fire. A bullet broke a leg and passed out of the body though the back, while the small metal message cylinder was left embedded in the side.
Despite the horrendous injuries, the messenger dutifully continued, until finally completing the mission, delivering the message, after an agonising journey of more than 21 hours – before dying the next day.
But this feat of endurance and perseverance was achieved not by a soldier but by a pigeon, known only as 2709, one of thousands to serve – and die – in the First World War.
The creatures are crediting with helping to save the lives of thousands of servicemen and influencing many key moments in the conflict, but their contribution has been largely overlooked in the intervening decades.
However, ahead of the centenary of the war’s outbreak later this year, the service of 2709 and others is now being honoured by the Royal Pigeon Racing Association.
The organisation is staging an exhibition at its annual conference in Blackpool next weekend to commemorate the role played by the creatures. It will feature highlights from its archives of 10,000 documents and photographs, revealing the extent to which the birds were used during the First and Second World Wars.
More than 100,000 served with British forces in the earlier war, performing a variety of roles, and with a success ratio of 95 per cent in getting their messages through.
On the Western Front, the birds were kept in mobile lofts – either horse drawn or mounted on lorries or London buses – behind the front line, before being taken to the trenches in wicker baskets when required.
They were particularly useful during battles, when field telephones could be disrupted, or once the men had advanced – or retreated – past their prepared lines of communication. They could be launched even during heavy bombardments and use their homing ability to return to their distinctively patterned lofts, even if these had been moved.
However, as they were trained to fly back to a known base, they could only be used to fly to the rear, rather than to take messages back to the front.
When released, they usually brought down a hail of enemy fire, as the Germans tried to bring down the birds and stop their messages getting through. Trained hawks were also brought up to the front line and sent after the homing pigeons.
The creatures were also used extensively by Germany – indeed, next week’s exhibition will also include a collection of memorabilia from a German fancier.
The Germans were said to have commandeered up to a million birds from occupied Belgium and the British also went to great lengths to try to kill and capture the enemy pigeons. Imprisoned birds were sometime taken back to the home front, where they were paraded in public.
During the conflict, the king, George V, even sent his own pigeons from the royal loft at Sandringham, so he could be updated on the progress of the war.
Messenger pigeons became so central to life in the trenches that one is even used as a plot device in the comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth – recently the focus of debate among politicians and academics – when the title character eats one and is court martialled.
The birds were also used on the home front too, and MI5 had what an internal document from the time called a “special hush-hush air station” at Milborne St Andrew, near Dorchester, where 1,000 birds were kept.
Pigeons fancying publications were censored and, under the Defence of the Realm Act – introduced in the early weeks of the war – anyone interfering with a homing pigeon faced £100 fines or six months in jail.
Pigeons also served on warships and even submarines, as back up to other forms of communication, as well as in aircraft – from which they were launched in mid air to report back on the progress of missions.
Another important role was raising the alarm when an aircraft crashed or was forced to land. A memo from the Air Ministry found in the RPRA files shows that of 212 birds singled out for “meritorious service” at the end of the war, a quarter had performed this task, usually from aircraft which had ditched in the sea.
One was said to have been launched from a “total wreck”, 190 miles out to sea, on a “dark, stormy December night”. Despite a 30 knot headwind, the bird arrived back at his loft with the message the following morning.
The new exhibition will also feature tales from the Second World War, when the birds’ role came to be more widely recognised. At the end, a special event was held to celebrate birds which had served while, in 1943, the Dickin Medal had been instituted to honour the contributions of animals in conflict. It was issued to 32 pigeons from the war, and at least 12 of these medals are expected to be on display at Blackpool, including those won by William of Orange, which flew more than 250 miles to report on the progress of the ill-fated Operation Market Garden, the 1944 British offensive which saw troops cut off by the Germans at Arnhem, in Holland.
Two soldiers tried to launch the bird off the city’s bridge but it was only when one of them fired his Sten gun into the air, that it flew off. The pigeon took just four hours and 25 minutes to fly the 260 miles back to its loft in Knutsford, Cheshire.
Another pigeon, GI Joe, saved the inhabitants of the village of Calvi Vecchia, in Italy, as well as British troops who had occupied it in October 1943. Air support had been requested to attack the area, which was thought to be strongly held by the Germans. The message that the British had already captured the village arrived just in time to avert the bombing raid.
Even more birds served in the Second World War than in the first, and pigeon food had to be rationed. The birds were carried on all RAF bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, to be released should the crew be shot down.
They were also sent into occupied Europe, to send back messages from resistance movements and Allied agents, prompting the Germans to post marksmen and falconers along the coast of the Channel, too intercept the birds.
It was not until 1948 that the military decided it had no use for the birds, while the Swiss army did not disband its pigeon section until 1996.
Stewart Wardrop, general manager of the RPRA, said: “These animals saved thousands of lives in the First World War and thousands more in the second, and got through messages which helped to change the course of battles. Whether these flights were acts of bravery or their natural behaviour is something you can argue about, but what is not in doubt is the help they gave to the Allied forces. Each one is a great story.”
When a seaplane with six crew ditched in the water far from land, those on board had to rely on the pigeons they carried with them, for their survival.
The aircraft’s two birds – 3534NURP17F and 16351NURP17F – were released for the journey back to the loft to raise the alarm.
The first arrived with the message. The second was found, a few miles from home, having died of exhaustion.
After three days on the water, all the crew were saved. At the end of the war, both birds were among 212 singled out by the Air Ministry for “meritorious service”.
The war’s most celebrated pigeon was Cher Ami, donated by British fanciers but serving with the Americans. The bird is credited with saving the lives of 200 men from the American 77th Infantry Division, known as the “Lost Battalion” who had become trapped behind enemy lines with little food or ammunition, during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, in October 1918.
The men had also started to be bombarded by their own side, who did not know their location.
After two other pigeons had been shot down, Cher Ami, the last pigeon, was sent up into the heavy enemy fire. The bird was shot down but managed to take flight again and succeeded in getting word back at her loft at division headquarters 25 miles to the rear in just 65 minutes. She had been shot through the breast, blinded in one eye, covered in blood and with a leg hanging only by a tendon.
The bird, which was fitted with a wooden leg, caught the imagination of the public. She survived another year, before dying of her wounds in the US. Her stuffed remains are now in the Smithsonian Institution. Originally registered as a cock, after her death she was discovered to be a hen.
During the Meuse-Argonne offensive, in October 1918, this pigeon, which had been hatched in a dugout ten months earlier, was released at a front line post at Grandpré with a message for headquarters at Rampont, 25 miles away.
The enemy had laid down a bombardment prior to an attack and the bird had to fly through this fire, gaining altitude before he could get his bearings. The men below watched as a shell exploded close to him, the concussion sending him down. However, he regained his height and was able to continue, arriving at Rampont 25 minutes later.
A bullet had ripped his breast, while bits of shrapnel had torn his body and his right leg was missing. The message tube, intact, was hanging by the ligaments of the torn leg.
He was nursed back to health, but became nicknamed John Silver, after the one-legged pirate. He died in 1935, in the USA, at the age of 17.
The 9 million unsung heroes of WW1: Dogs, horses and carrier pigeons made victory possible
The Mirror, Jul 31, 2014 By Melissa Thompson
A 16 million-strong army of animals including mules, donkeys, cats and even camels was deployed - with the lives of 9m tragically cut short
Trapped behind enemy lines during the First World War, the few surviving soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division came under fire from both sides.
As German bullets strafed through the Argonne Forest in north-east France and picked them off one by one, they came under heavy shellfire from their own lines too.
With less than 200 men from a 500-strong unit still alive, three messengers were sent on a perilous last-ditch mission to let HQ known their position. It was their only hope.
Two were killed at once. The third was hit too. But blinded in one eye, with a gaping chest wound and one leg hanging by a single tendon, the determined courier managed to struggle a further 25 miles and deliver the message before collapsing.
The plan worked. Allied bombardment ceased at once and 194 men from what became known as the US Army’s Lost Battalion were rescued.
What makes this heroic First World War story all the more astonishing is the fact the messenger was not a soldier. It was a female carrier pigeon called Cher Ami.
She was one of 100,000 homing pigeons used to carry messages to and from the trenches between 1914 and 1918. Where other methods failed, pigeons had a success rate of 95%.
The Germans were so rattled they took hawks to the frontline – so some pigeons that dodged bullets and shellfire succumbed to birds of prey.
These feathered fighters were among a 16 million-strong army of animals – horses, mules, donkeys, dogs, cats and even camels – that helped secure victory.
But not without an enormous cost. More than a million dogs and eight million horses, mules and donkeys died on both sides.
Cher Ami survived her battle wounds from October 1918 and even had a wooden leg carved for her before dying a year later.
Stewart Wardrop, manager of the modern-day Royal Pigeon Racing Association, said: “That pigeon getting that message back saved 190 people’s lives. There were no radios in the trenches and the land wires were broken once shelling started, so contact was lost.
“Pigeons were the best way of carrying messages from the front line and by 1918 the Royal Engineer’s Signal Service alone had 25,000 birds in use with 380 men to look after them.”
Archives at the RPRA offices near Cheltenham, Glos, celebrate the achievements in page after page telling how pigeons saved lives.
RAF pilots would take them on missions then release them if they were downed with a message giving their position to rescuers.
Dogs were used to carry messages too. They also helped wounded soldiers and sniffed out the enemy. Around 20,000 served in the war, some pulling heavy armour, machine guns and other gear.
Among the most important were watchdogs trained not to bark but quietly growl on the approach of enemy troops. In some instances they would just silently prick up their ears.
The training took place at the War Dog School of Instruction in Hampshire. Lt Col Richardson, who ran the school and went into battle with his dogs, said later: “Their skill, courage and tenacity has been amazing.
"During heavy barrages, when all other communications have been cut, the messenger dogs have made their way.”
One of the most legendary was Rags, an abandoned French stray adopted by the US 1st Infantry Division.
Though he was gassed, shelled and partially blinded, he survived the war. This was partly because he could hear shells coming before the soldiers – so he was an early-warning system too.
Canaries were used to detect poisonous gases and both cats and dogs hunted rats in the squalid trenches.
Horses were recruited in hundreds of thousands for the cavalry and, with donkeys and mules, to haul equipment over terrain vehicles could not cross. In the Middle East and Asia camels did the same.
Some built high reputations, including Warrior, a thoroughbred ridden by General Jack Seely and known as The Horse The Germans Can’t Kill.
With exploits that mirror the fictional story of War Horse, he survived the massive casualties at Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele and lived on until 1941.
Warrior’s newspaper obituary said: “The horse served continuously on the Western Front till Christmas Day 1918. Twice he was buried by the bursting of big shells on soft ground, but he was never seriously wounded.
"Again and again he survived when death seemed certain and, indeed, befell all his neighbours. I have seen him, even when a shell has burst within a few feet, stand still without a tremor – just turn his head and, unconcerned, look at the smoke of the burst.”
Dr Matthew Shaw of the British Library, which dedicated an exhibition to WW1 animals, says: “They were central to the war effort. “Without them it’s likely victory would not have been secured. It would have been impossible to keep the front line supplied.”
The casualties were heavy. Of a million horses and mules recruited by the British Army, nearly half died as a result of injury or enemy fire. In one day alone 7,000 horses died during the battle of Verdun in 1916.
And most of those who survived enemy action were seen off by disease, so that in the end only 60,000 returned home. When war broke out the charity Our Dumb Friends League launched what would become the Blue Cross Fund to raise money for the Army Veterinary Corps.
Steven Broomfield, hospital manager at the Blue Cross HQ in London, explains: “By the end of 1914 the Blue Cross had established four main depots on the Western Front supplying bandages, antiseptic tablets, fly shields for their eyes and humane killers if they couldn’t be saved.”
By 1918 the fund had raised £170,000 – around £6million today – and treated 50,000 sick horses and 18,000 dogs.
Mr Broomfield also believes horses played a decisive role in the victory.
“In the latter part of the war, the Germans ran out of horses and dismounted their cavalry,” he says. “In 1918 they launched a massive offensive that broke through the British and French lines but had no cavalry to exploit it.
"We, on the other hand, had several divisions of horses that could plug holes all over the place.”
Some animals were even accused of espionage. In a July 1915 report released by the US National Archives, officers from the 36th Infantry Brigade, 12th Division, claimed a dog and two cats were “acting suspiciously” around the trenches, and voiced the suspicion that they were spying.
The note read: “They have been in the habit of crossing our trenches at night. Steps are being taken to trap them if possible.”
The fate of the suspects was never recorded. Another vital role played by animals was as morale-boosting mascots. And alongside domestic pets taken into battle, goats and even fox cubs were recruited too.
Paul Cornish of the Imperial War Museum explains: “You’d find kittens in a tank and even in the heat of the battle, men would adopt animals that had been left over by the enemy.
“It was probably something to do with holding on to a bit of normality... offering a bit of innocence in contrast to the horror around them.
“Because the one thing they couldn’t blame for everything bad that was happening around them was an animal.”
