Volume 18 , Issue 6

NW Okie's Journey

From Carrier pigeons In war time to telegraph, to telephone, to radio communications, we have had some interesting system of communications over the years.

In 1929, the newspaper from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, The Age, dated 16 February 1929, Saturday, page 28, reported on "Training Homing Pigeons." They were considered gifted birds that had a glorious war record.

Found on Newspapers.com

The General had planned an attack on a ten mile front in the late world war (WWI) . After an artillery preparation, the infantry went over the top at daybreak. Almost immediately all communications broke down; the field buzzers did not buy, and the runners did not come back.

The General waited for hours at head quarters, peering through the dust and haze in the direction taken by his attacking army. At last he saw a solitary carrier pigeon come out of the murk and land on the division pigeon loft. It was one of the birds he had sent out in the morning with his men.

So eager was the general that he clambered up the ladder himself, secured the pigeon, tore the little metal ring off its leg and unrolled the enclosed message. He must know how it was going with his army, and how far they had secured their objectives.

These are the words he read:
"I am sick of carrying this b---y bird."

Evidently the job of lugging along a pigeon in addition to his other equipment was the straw that broke some humorous digger's back. And small wonder, since the standard size trench basket measures 14-1/2 by 9 by w0 inches, and with the pigeon on its straw bed the message pad, pencil, message carriers and 4 ounces of pigeon food (enough for two days), weigh in all about 4-1/2 lb.

Never the less the homing pigeon had proved its worth in battle from the time when Decimus Junius Brutus, besieged by Mark Antony in the year 43 B.C., communicated with his consuls by means of pigeons, to those fearful days' of 1918, when the major, his command isolated and his chain of runner posts cut off by the enemy, released his last remaining pigeon with its vital message.

As a rule these little messengers were not used in warfare until all other means of communication had failed. Hence the words they carry may mean life or death to an isolated unit, or be the sole means of sending valuable information from behind the enemy's lines. During the world war more than 500,000 homing pigeons were used by the various combatants. In the Meuse-Argonne offensive alone 442 pigeons were said to have been used, and these delivered a total of 403 messages without a recorded loss of asing le despatch.

It was in these years the Germans had a price on carrier pigeons. Their possessor was punishable by death. Charlie, the dean of war time pigeons, belonged to an Englishman living in Germany. Each time the house was searched his owner hid Charlie in his coat pocket. The bird carried hundreds of important messages across the lines. After the war, until the time of his death, Charlie received a pension of 2 franc a month from the French Government.

Even to be seen speaking to a pigeon during war time was apt to cause one's arrest as a spy.

Another winged hero, probably a lineal descendant of those carrier pigeons which played an important part in the siege of Paris in 1870, helped save Verdun. Through a barrage of shrapnel he carried a message that kept Froideterre Hill from being captured. The pigeon received an army citation for having "maintained communication with the front line when all human means failed." In its flight through the barrage the bird was hit by a shell splinter, and thereafter were a wound stripe on its leg band, and was a Government pensioner.

Such were their feats in times of war. When peaceful days came pigeons, like men, sometimes unwittingly got mixed up in sinister enterprises.

In 1923, a wounded pigeon was picked up in California by a Federal narcotic agent. Attached to its leg was evidence which revealed the existence of a narcotic ring operating between Mexico and the Untied States. It was discovered that hundreds of trained carrier pigeons were being used to convey narcotics across the order from the Mexican side. The pigeons were released at specified times,a dn each one carried a small moisture proof package of drugs. A few hours flight and they would arrive to be checked up at their owners' homes on the American side of the border.

We know that hunters and hawks were the pigeons' worst enemies. Hunters could be arrested and fined, but it was difficult to circumvent the evil designs of a hawk which is determined to dine on a tender young pigeon.

The Chines equip their pigeons with tail whistles to protect them from birds of prey. Tail whistles for pigeons was an ancient custom in China. For centuries the Chinese had attached whistles to their pigeons' tail feathers as soon as the birds were out of the shell. These were bamboo tubes, weighing a few grains, and were fastened on by a fine copper wire. They were of different sizes and shapes, and lacquered against the weather. The quaint custom was intended to keep the flock together, and, that was more important, to scare off hawks and falcons. As the pigeons fly, the wind blows eerie tunes through the whistles. Each whistle being different, a flock of pigeons flying overhead made a charming open air symphony of their own. Just how much terror the wind blown concert will larouse in the heart of a hungry, determined hawk was debatable.

The term carrier pigeon was generally misused. It referred to a particular breed of bird. The tribe of modern feathered message bearers were properly called homing pigeons.

The family tree of the homer was impressive. He was descended from distinct breeds of birds - the English Dragoon, a large bird of crow shape; the Volant or Cumulate, a tumbler; the Camus, and the Cravate Francais, or Smerle, who was in in turn descended from he owl. The homer may resemble any of his forefathers, but to a connoisseur, a well bred bird was quite different in appearance from his poor relations which flutter around the windows of city buildings.

The extra sense that leads a pigeon over hundreds of unfamiliar miles to its home seems miraculous. Some theorists claim that homing pigeons are guided by electric waves. Others say they depend wholly upon sight, which is the reason they fly straight up in the air, and as they circle around, pick out a few familiar landmarks before starting for home. But most authorities agree that as far as they know, the homing faculty of the pigeon is simply a combination of instinctive love of home, sight, intelligence and memory.

A scientific man once explained that there is something in the pigeon's head like a compass. When the bird flies up and circles overhead, the needle of its compass is getting set. Once the needle is fixed in the direction of home, nothing but death can throw a pigeon off its course.

But then they don't always fly up like that, and yet they get home just the same. It was just instinct. We have not got it, and we can't explain it.

Their training starts as soon as the young birds are two months old. On the first day the pigeon is taken to a distance equal to about ten city blocks and turned loose to fly back to the home left. On the second day the homing instinct is tested over twice this distance. And each day the distance is increased proportionately, until able to return to the loft from a distance of 50 miles. They are then ready to be flown in races from 100 to 1000 miles.

The pigeons must be carefully fed on a varying diet of vetch, maize, beans, peas and broken rice and millet. Every trainer has his own ideas. The pigeon must be provided with drinking troughs, rock salt and crushed mortar. And most important, the birds must be exercised twice a day, for an hour at a time.

a record flight for a bird over a distance of 1000 miles was made by a pigeon of the blue-check variety, which started at 5 o'clock in the afternoon from Pensacola, Florida, and crossed the tape at his home loft in New York City at 8 o'clock the next morning. This was an average over 60 miles an hour.

We shall overcome! Good Night! Good Luck!
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