This article is illustrated with photos of maimed and disfigured carrier pigeons: birds who knew well the face of war… Published in 1919 in the American Legion Weekly, it is filled with interesting lore of the battles waged by the ‘feathered aviators’ of the 1914 – 1918 war. You will read about how the pigeons were often dyed black so as to be mistaken for crows; how they were used at sea and at Verdun and that spies relied upon them.
“Pigeons are not new to war. It is on record that the Romans and Greeks used them and that Hannibal carried a cote crossing the Alps in order to send word back to Carthage of his progress…it was a pigeon which first announced to an anxious London the victory at Waterloo.”
It was said that the carrier pigeons of W.W. II were ten percent stronger.
Click here to read more articles about the dogs, pigeons and elephants that toiled throughout the First World War.
