Its time to salute them
 

There is a forgotten airwar, it had an extreme casulty rate for any branch. At the end of the war 95% of the participants would die.

Some of this brave heros of this hidden war, had with there actions an important role doing the entire war.

I salute those who fought and died in the carrier pigoin war.

Winkie, G.I Joe and the others.

Winkie flew in the dark stormy north Atlantic back to its loft. She was covered in oil and fuel, giving the position for her Aircrew. They were saved the next day.

British soldiers capture a gun batteri at the morning of D day. The plan if they dont have succes is to use a battleship to engage the position. The british radio died. The send out a carrier pigion, that pigion saved the british soldiers life by stopping the shelling. More importantly did the action of this pigion the allied invasion fleet secret since the battleship didnt have to give its position. There are some who state that the succes of D day comes down to this single pigons work.

In Italy allied troops capture an objective with no fighting. Allied bombers was just about to take of to bomb the position. The radio didnt work so 2000 allied soldiers was about to be bombed by there own bombers. A carrier pigion maneged to fly back to the base and the attack was called of while the bombers was on the run way preparing to take of.

Both sides used these brave birds. British secret service even had a carrier pigion branch called MI14. Both sides used them, fighting a low tec war using birds. Falcons was trained to intercept carrier pigions, and the british even had succes of training the falcons to bring back the pigions instead of eating them giving the informations from the spyes to british secret service.

I salute these brave birds....

All this sounds wierd and stuf, but how many of you knew that it was normal for each bomber to carry two carrier pigions with them??

There is a medal, given to the few..

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ckin_Medal.jpg

more information about this award can be found here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickin_Medal

So all you virtual piston driven aces out there...Join me in a salute for these brave birds actions.

Ltbear
S!

:) +1 here.Animals have always been involved in wars,horses in particular,sniffer dogs and i guess you can add animals that have been tested on to see what works and what doesn't.
We can be a cruel bunch.

And let us not forget the brave plants that took part in the war as well.

"Woody" the pine tree, who selflessly allowed himself to be cut down to form a bridge across the Rhine.
Or the countless apple trees that lay down their fruit so that the soldiers could eat.

Why is there no medal for them?

Im actualy not sure why you meen. These birds like it or not might have saved the lifes for 2000-5000, maby the entire D day and you talk about plants???

Please read up on this subject and you will understand how vital they actualy were....

They were the main meens for the french resistance for communicating with the british.

They are a forgotten, but vital part of the communication doing ww2

Maby you should stay of the "plants" and read abit about this before posting...;)

LTbear

The French Resistance wouldn't have existed if it didn't have plants to eat.
I suspect it is you who does not understand how vital plants actually were. Furthermore, most plants who helped the war effort gave up their lives in the process.

I am quite happy to remember the pigeons and dogs, as long as we also remember the plants who sacrificed just as much, if not more.
They where more essential than any other living thing (apart from servicemen) in the war.

S!

Speckled Jim

I'm a big wimp and I love dogs. I get all choked up when I read or see something about dogs in war. Really, what gets to me is the love the men had for their dogs. It's sad to think that much of the time they had to leave their dogs behind when they left the military.

Just a quick snippet: http://www.worldwar2history.info/Marines/dogs.html

Splitter

Thanks for the link,i will have a read soon :) Nice to see a positive post on this thread unlike one or two others.:confused:

Pigeons are overmodelled ! They turn on a dime and cannot be BnZ'd because their DM is so strange...

Ours is not to question why our is but to do and fly. S!