Granddad and His Racing Pigeons Went to War

Racing pigeons, or what they really were, homing pigeons. During the war of 1914-1918, homing pigeons were very valuable to send messages from the front to the home base in England. This was at times the only way that the Officers could give their orders to the troops.

Many times the radios were jammed by the enemy so the pigeons became very valuable.

These little birds were sent to the front in crates and did not see the light of day until they were released with a message tied to one of their legs.

Once they delivered their message, they were put in their own pigeon loft to rest, then after a few days along with other birds they were returned to the front.

The pigeon had an additional enemy other than the hawks and falcons for they were easily deen by the Germans in the other trenches and a great number of them were picked off by the German snipers.

Of course these snipers were doing the same as the English and the French as they were also shooting the German pigeons.

The Germans and the English of course tried to send their pigeons off on their destination as early as possible, just when the sun had begun to rise, however, still there was a large number of pigeons lost on each side.

At the beginning of the war, Granddad's pigeon loft was used as one of the home bases, however, as time moved on, his very young birds were taken south to the outskirts of London, making the journey from the trenches much shorter.



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