Pigeons of war
By Suzanne Curry
Associate Member, Northern Tasmanian Lighthorse Troop
In the two world wars, carrier pigeons of the Racing Homer breed were used to carry messages. Pigeons are intelligent and displayed great agility and tenacity in extreme conditions, saving tens of thousands of lives.
The pigeon is best known for its ability to return ‘home’ from long distances. The dovecote (loft) has played an essential role in the domestication of pigeons. Pigeons are housed and bred within these structures and it is this ‘home’, as messengers, that they return to.
The instincts that allow them to find their way home are not well understood. Magnetoreception (a sense that allows an organism to detect a magnetic field to perceive direction, altitude or location) may play a part, as may a pigeon’s ability to identify landmarks.
Pigeons have numerous advantages in wartime. They are easy to transport, eat little and are not easily distracted from their task. If captured, there is no evidence of their origin or destination. They are faster than a runner, cyclist or man on horseback, flying at up to 100 km per hour.
Pigeons were used most often to send messages from the front-line trenches or advancing units and were also carried in aircraft and ships. Though difficult to estimate, at least 500,000 pigeons were used by the Allies during the two world wars. Pigeons commonly carried their messages in special containers attached to their legs, or small pouches looped over their backs.
One example of a short message from a downed airplane in the First World War read: ‘On water attacked by 3 huns’. Knowing the airplane flight path, its planned destination, the arrival of the pigeon in the loft, and taking account of wind direction and inhibiting factors such as oil spillage on the pigeon’s feathers, the Royal Air Force was able to approximate where the plane went down.
In 1941, Australian troops used pigeons to carry messages during the Syrian Campaign. To ensure that the pigeons would not be bruised while being carried by dispatch riders, they were carefully strapped into elastic hammocks which swung freely in baskets. In December 1941, the Australian Corps of Signals Pigeon Service was born, to which Australians donated over 13,500 messenger pigeons.
It was during this time that 2 Australian pigeons were the first in our history to be awarded the Dickin Medal – the highest award any animal can receive while serving in the military.
Today, military pigeon forces are all but a thing of the past, but the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the French Land Army still maintain small pigeon forces in the event of communications being thwarted by electronic warfare.
Images:
- A messenger of the 6th Australian Carrier Pigeon Section, Hobart, 1943. (AWM 051114)
- Hansa Bay, New Guinea, 7 September 1944. Signaller C.A. Mantiet, 25th Infantry Battalion, unloading carrier pigeons from the left carrier truck to Lieutenant J. Chesteron who is to lead a patrol of men from B Company, through the Boroi River area. (AWM 075922)