WAR PIGEONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1942, Page 4

WAR PIGEONS

MIDDLE EAST SERVICE LOFTS WITH 15,000 BIRDS. Pigeons are today winging their way across the English Channel and the North Sea back to lofts in Great Britain. They carry mesages from the silent army at work in occupied Europe, the army which is paving the way for the not so silent army which will one day invade the Continent, says a writer in Parade, the Middle East weekly journal. Outside Great Britain, from Takoradi, on the west coast of Africa to Aleppo near the Turkish border, from Cyprus to the Sinai Desert, from Khartoum to Capetown, Middle East Pigeon Service lofts are working. They will provide communication when all other means fail. HELP FOR AIRMEN. The pilot of a plane on the many ferry routes can communicate with his last staging post if he force-lands. A bomber “ditching” in the sea has a special watertight pigeon container which the crew take with them on their rubber dinghy. The bird can be released to give the shore station their position so that the R.A.F. high-speed launch or any ship at hand can dash to their rescue. A ship is torpedoed and for some reason radio cannot be used. The pigeon flies off on his errand of mercy —and gets through. The pigeon service find they need not allow for more than 3 per cent failure.

FEATHERED HEROES. Flying sometimes as fast as 65 miles an hour, the pigeon can cover 600 miles in the hours of daylight. It will get back home as long as there is breath in its body. It may be wounded like the American homer in the last war which brought a desperate message for reinforcements at Argonne with one leg hanging from the thigh, or Number 2709, which won the V.C. and a place of honour in the United Services Museum for struggling back from the front line at Menin Road in October, 1917, with a despatch to divisional headquarters. Number 2709 started in the early afternoon, was shot down by the enemy and lay in the rain all night. Next morning it struggled back to the loft and died before the message could be taken off its lc°’. FLY IN DUST STORM. ■> The Middle East Pigeon Service stayed in January this year. Provided with stock from South Africa, it aims at an establishment of 15.000 pigeons with a staff of 400 pigeon experts. Middle East pigeons are already at work in. the Western Desert, and although so far none have been mentioned in despatches, it may not be long before a “dark chequer pied white flight” joins the ranks of those who have won honours by a deed of courage and endurance. One thing more. Pigeons do not seem to mind a dust storm. It only gives them a beautiful thirst.