Pigeon Express

My uncle told me that long ago people used carrier pigeons to take messages to other people. He actually has some carrier pigeons. They live in a coop on the roof of his apartment building. They aren’t everyday pigeons—they have been trained.

My uncle had carrier pigeons when he was a child. He grew up and went into the army, but now he works at a store. He has always loved those carrier pigeons. So when he got enough money, he bought some and trained them himself.

Every day, my uncle writes a note to his sister. His sister lives on the south side and my uncle lives on the west side. He tells his sister about his day in his notes. He says it’s not urgent to tell her the news. He just likes using the carrier pigeons.

His sister thinks this is silly. When the pigeon comes, she takes the note and reads it but does not send anything back. Afterwards, the bird comes back to my uncle’s coop.

One day there was a sudden rainstorm after the pigeon left my uncle’s coop. It rained so hard and so long that everything was flooded. The pigeon did not come back immediately, so my uncle started to worry about the pigeon. He worried about his sister, too. But then the pigeon came back. It was very wet. It had a note in a plastic bag. The note said, “I am ok.”

Later that summer, there was another problem. The power was out. We did not have any telephone service. My uncle said, “See, pigeons can work all the time. They don’t need electricity.” He wrote that in a note, too. He tied that note to the pigeon. Then he sent that note
to his sister.

About an hour later, the pigeon came back. It had another note on it. “You’re right,” it said. “I have learned that you can count on pigeons. But I still want my telephone back.”

The phone lines were back the next day. We were not worried, though. We knew we could always count on our pigeon express.

WWII Carrier Pigeon Finally Delivers Secret Message by Lama Hasan

Secrets from World War II may have been found in a coded message attached to the skeleton of a carrier pigeon found in an English chimney.The bird was found when David Martin in Bletchingly, Surrey, was renovating his fireplace.Martin told the BBC that he began “pulling it down, pulling it down…then the pigeon bones began appearing one by one by one. Down came the leg with the red capsule on with a message inside.” Martin called the discovery unbelievable and his wife was so delighted with the 70-year-old surprise she said it was like “Christmas.” Theories suggest the bird was making its way from behind enemy lines, perhaps from Nazi occupied France during the D Day invasions heading toward Bletchley Park which was Britain’s main decryption establishment during World War II. Others say the bird likely got lost, disorientated in bad weather or was simply exhausted after its trip across the English Channel and landed in the Martin’s chimney. More than 250,000 carrier pigeons were used in World War II. They were called the National Pigeon Service and were relied on heavily to transport secret messages. During the war the Dickin Medal, which is the highest possible animal’s decoration for valor, was awarded to 32 pigeons, including the United States Army Pigeon Service’s G.I. Joe and the Irish pigeon Paddy. Government code breakers are working to read the message found in Martin’s chimney. Colin Hill from the Bletchley Park pigeon exhibition told BBC, ”I thought no way on earth can I work this one out.” They have determined so far that the message is from a Sgt. W. Stott and that it was written 70 years ago.