carrier pigeons

carrier pigeons, like other animals, were employed—by both sides—more frequently than might be supposed. British birds were conscripted into the National Pigeon Service and were used most often by the RAF whose aircraft carried them for air-sea rescue purposes. A Falcon Control Unit was formed to protect them, as was a Falcon (Interceptor) Unit whose members were trained to bring down suspect pigeons. British intelligence dropped them in containers over occupied France and British police, war correspondents, spies, war photographers, and even businesses all used them to send messages. Their military application was limited, but by December 1944 US carrier pigeons operating out of 28 lofts in 15 locations during the Italian campaign—where the mountainous terrain inhibited radio communications—carried more than 10,000 messages. They were especially useful in this theatre to Italian partisans who used them extensively to dispatch information about German defences. Five hundred pigeons were sent on the Normandy landings (see OVERLORD); both the Australians and the Japanese employed them in the New Guinea campaign; as did the US Navy at Okinawa.