by Jim Greelis, AU Historian
In ancient times pigeons were the
fastest way to send messages. There are
writings that report that the Persian King Cyrus used birds to send
information, and the Greeks used homing pigeons to send news of Olympic
victories. During the eighth century in France, only the nobles had homing pigeons and the birds were considered
a symbol of power and prestige, until the French revolution changed things so
that the common man could have them. Even Julius Caesar used homing pigeons to
carry messages of importance.
In 1870 the Franco-Prussian war broke
out and Paris was surrounded and cut off. The people in Paris figured out they
could use hot air balloons to carry baskets of homing pigeons and other letters
out of the city and the friendly French in the countryside could send messages
back into Paris via the homing pigeons. This
allowed the trapped people of Paris to communicate and maintain their hope and
morale during the war. It was about this time that microphotography was
developed in England, but used to great effect in this war to exchange many
military instructions quickly via homing pigeon. The microphotography allowed a
single pigeon to carry as many as 30,000 messages! The four month siege of Paris
saw 400 birds deliver nearly 115,000 government messages and about a million
private messages according to historians.
By 1914 when the war to end all wars
(WWI) broke out the European armies were widely using homing pigeons in their
war communications. United States General John Pershing
saw the birds in use and ordered the Army Signal Corp to begin putting together
their own pigeon communication system. It is believed that over half a million birds
were used by the warring armies as reliable communication. These special birds had a 95 percent success
rate in WWI delivering their messages and proved to be a lifeline for the
troops on the front line. Remember this war was before modern radio and the
telegraph was the other more-modern option for communicating. But this wire based system was easily cut in
two or tapped into by enemy forces if given the chance. The homing pigeons were used by others like aircraft pilots
on reconnaissance missions, sailors off the
coast, and even tanks on the move. WWI was the height of homing pigeon use
for military purposes. There were many pigeon heroes and several of these war
birds received medals.
One of the most famous WWI pigeon
stories to be told is that of the “lost battalion” in France that was saved by a
pigeon named Cher Ami. This 600 man battalion was being shelled and wounded by
friendly fire because they advanced too far into enemy territory.
Their only hope of communication was by bird and Cher Ami gave it his all. The German soldiers saw the bird take flight
and began firing upon the bird wounding it but not enough to take away its will to fly the 25 miles back
to the command post. It arrived with one
eye shot out, a bullet in its breast and most of the leg missing that had the
message capsule still attached – hanging on only by a tendon. The message
stopped the shelling and the battalion was later saved. After healing, Cher Ami went on to receive
an honorary service cross and taken back to America and lived until 1919. Later
he was mounted and then placed on display in the Smithsonian Institute.
When WWII broke out in the early 40’s
the homing pigeon was brought back into service on both sides of the war. Many
people do not realize that the head of the SS, Hemlic Hemmler, was also head of
the national pigeon organization at one time and felt that
the Nazis would benefit by taking over the national pigeon organization and the
use of its members and birds. The Germans had 50,000 birds ready for use when
the war had broken out. Unfortunately for America, the US Army Signal Corp did
not maintain its pigeon program and had to rebuild it from scratch. The Corp
solicited birds from fanciers that were willing to donate them, and looked for
new draftees that had a poultry or pigeon background to work as pigeoneers.
Although the radio was developed at
this time to carry voice, whereas Morse code was used in WWI, the homing pigeon
was sometimes an excellent choice for communicating while maintaining radio
silence. As one might expect, radio direction finders were used by both sides
to locate and take out each other’s forces. The homing pigeon was also found to
be a capable airborne means flying a camera over enemy locations to learn more
about troop strength and location. A camera was mounted underneath the pigeon
behind enemy lines and allowed to fly home where the camera was examined. These
photos might show actual troops and equipment or, if flying over a German town,
might show certain type factories or other military targets for bombing.
Spies on both sides used pigeons to
carry information and sometimes the birds were asked to fly the English Channel
between Great Britain and France. The English and the Germans developed their
own falcon program to intercept birds but they were just as likely to intercept
one of their birds and stop the intended communication from ever arriving.
WWII came to an end and in 1956 the US
Army shut down the Pigeon Corp. The service of the homing pigeon went dormant until
the 1970’s when the US Coast Guard started using them again but in a different
way. During the 1940’s pigeons in a Tufts University lab had proven the
exceptional ability to pick out certain shapes and colors in exchange for food.
The US Coast Guard decided the same abilities could be useful while searching
for men and equipment in open waters so they set up some testing using a small
observation bubble on the bottom of some their helicopters stationed near San
Francisco. This project called Project Sea Hunt used three pigeons that faced 120
degrees from each other so that they covered the entire 360 degrees under the
helicopter. The pigeons were 92 percent reliable in finding the test subjects
or objects where humans were found to be in the 30-40 percent range. The
project never got out of the testing phase and was ended in 1983 due to federal
budget cuts so the birds did not get a chance to actually save any lives.
(Excerpts taken from the History
Channels production called Animals in Action, and Jerome Pratt’s book titled
Courageous Couriers.)
