ABC - Letter H

H IS FOR HOMING PIGEON

 



So much has been in the news over the past year about drones being able to fly unmanned into other parts of the world.  I saw something on the history channel about homing pigeons and that sent me on an exploration of how they were used in wartime.

From Wickepedia:
Homing pigeons have been used for over 3,000 years.  When used to send messages,  notes were written on paper and rolled into a small tube and attached to the birds leg.

100,000 were used during WWI with 95% success and the US Army had 54,000 in the Army Pigeon Service . The British and French armies also used the pigeon for communication.

  The most famous homing pigeon was Cher Ami who delivered 12 messages despite being injured.  She helped save the lost Battalion of the 77th Division in the battle of Argonne, October 1918.  She was awarded the Croix de Guerre Medal for her service.  She is displayed at the Smithsonian Institute.

Some were attached with cameras to capture the battles in progress.

Little did I know that my hubby and his brother raised and trained  homing pigeons when they were youngsters.  I did not  know this until he told me about it last week when I told him about my ABC Wednesday subject. 

I started frantically looking through his old pictures to see If I could find a picture of him and his brother and their pigeon coups.  LOW and BEHOLD I found one!! They built this pigeon coup and you can see the chicken wire in the closest coup. They also had lots of pens inside the larger building for different kinds of birds.  They were around 14 and 11 during this time, my hubbys brother is holding one of their white homing pigeons and my hubby is holding onto their nephew who dosen't seem to impressed!!!

  

 

In this world of every electronic object you can name, isn't it amazing that one of Gods creatures was used to aid our soldiers in distant lands to win WWI and WWII. 

 

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Ann