Its time to salute them

[Ltbear]

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..



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!