Pet Bird History

There is a war memorial in Lille (France) that remembers the more then 20,000 military pigeons that were killed during the war. Airplanes and war-ships were always accompanied by pigeons. During World War I, Military pigeons brought 717 messages of crashed airplanes at sea. Ninety-five percent of the military pigeons returned from their mission. Four hundred forty-two pigeons were used during the offensive of Mense-Argonne. They brought 403 messages. Many birds were badly injured.

There were more than 3,000 soldiers and 150 officers of the United States Pigeon Service to take care of 54,000 military pigeons. Some of those pigeons were trained to fly at night, they went together with the field-post, paratroopers and submarines and made pictures of the enemy's fleet, troops and targets for air attacks.

There were some limitations, however. Pigeons could only be trained to fly to known positions, they could therefore only be deployed from the front line to rear positions and not in the other direction unless troops were settled in a particular location for a lengthy period of time.

Pigeons were also carried aboard warships and sea planes as a means of communications backup should radio communications break down. During wartime, the killing, wounding or molesting of working homing pigeons meant six months imprisonment or a hefty monetary fine.

British and American museums are full of memories of our flying heroes. Pigeons were decorated and buried with military honor. It seems that the military pigeons of those days were stronger and had a greater tenacity. The French government also rewarded pigeons a medal, the Croix de Guerre, and a special band with the colors of the medal were sewn around their legs.