Blog Post #4 EOTO "Carrier Pigeons"

Carrier Pigeons as a method of military communications dates back over 3,000 years. Dating all the way back to 5th century B.C. During the first Olympic Games, every athlete had a carrier pigeon from their village. When they won, the person's bird would fly back to their home base to deliver the good news to everyone!

The first airmail using pigeons was established in 1896 in New Zealand and was known as the Pigeon-Gram Service. Their speed averaged 77.6 mph, only 40% slower than a modern aircraft. Each pigeon carried up to 5 messages and was essential to being able to spread messages during World War 1. They were delivering messages at such a high rate that German marksmen were deployed to shoot the birds down. Pigeons were even carried in tanks in case there was an accident and they needed to go alert others on the location of the downed tanks. 2 Pigeon Corps were established during this time. This consisted of 15 pigeon stations each with 4 birds and a handler. The Pigeon Corps was so successful that further birds were being recruited. By the end of the war "The Pigeon Corps" consisted of over 25,000 pigeons. 

In the photograph to the left you see a carrier pigeon with a camera attached to its belly. The Germans did this to try and get a leg up during World War 1. The camera would take pictures when the bird flew over certain locations. It was as if the carrier pigeon become a spy, this revolutionized World War 1. 

The life of a carrier pigeon was quite hard and very sad. It took around six weeks to train a carrier pigeon as to where their home roost or loft was located. This was extremely important when it came to delivering messages because if it didn't end up in the right location, that could be extremely detrimental to the party that needed to receive it. Pigeons would also carry their messages in a small canister than would then be attached to the pigeons leg. Whenever the pigeon would successfully deliver a message, a bell would ring out to alert other people that the message had arrived safely. However, war was extremely brutal to the pigeons that helped send out messages. Fewer than 10% survived the shell fire, small arms fire, poison gas. This became such an issue that in France they declared anyone who impeded a pigeons flight could be sentenced to death.

  THE STORY OF CHER AMI

This is a heartbreaking story of a carrier pigeon who was flown by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, known as Cher Ami, the heroic American Black Check Cock carrier pigeon. He delivered twelve important messages within the American sector at Verdun; on his last mission, October 4, 1918, he was shot through the breast and leg by enemy fire but still managed to return to his loft with a message capsule dangling from the wounded leg. The message Cher Ami carried was from Major Charles S. Whittlesey's "Lost Battalion" of the Seventy-seventy Infantry Division that had been isolated from other American forces. The message brought about the relief of the 194 battalion survivors, and they were safe behind American lines shortly after the message was received. It was because of pigeons like Cher Ami that the memorial in Hyde Park was created to commemorate all of the animals and birds killed during wartime.