Take these birds under our wing
CLATTERING pigeon wings are likely to come as an annoyance to those standing in respectful silence at today’s National Service of Remembrance. Scruffy street birds are very much part of the London skyline but any casting shadows over the Cenotaph will be regarded with disdain when the good and great salute the service and sacrifice of our Armed Forces.
Surprisingly, the birds have their place in the nation’s struggles against tyranny.verminous feral pigeons share a common link with some of the least expected but most highly decorated heroes of military conflicts over the past century.
The rock dove, scientific name Columba livia, is not only the forebear of pigeons kept as handy sources of protein in dovecotes, only to escape and eventually become pariahs for pest controllers, but also those highly prized birds honed as message carriers because of their innate homing instincts.their escapades are writ large in military history.
Over the past year, the PDSA has been marking the 75th anniversary of its prestigious Dickin Medal, otherwise known as the Animals’ Victoria Cross.
The medal was instituted in 1943 by Maria Dickin, founder of the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, the veterinary charity that has become a life-saver for the UK’S most vulnerable pets, with around 470,000 animals receiving free or reduced cost care at its network of 48 hospitals each year.
To date, the Dickin Medal has been presented 71 times since the height of the Second World War, with dogs, horses and even a cat receiving the bronze decoration with its ribbon of green, brown and blue and embossed with the legend: “For Gallantry. We Also Serve”.
Messenger pigeons have been recognised on 32 occasions for their tenacity in braving gunfire, attacks by marauding hawks, surviving storms and travelling unbelievable distances to deliver dispatches from the frontline.
Pigeons such as Mary of Exeter, GI Joe and Duke of Normandy, the first bird to arrive with a message from paratroopers of the 21st Army
Group from behind enemy lines on D-day, have become legendary.
Winkie might sound an incongruous name to be carved in the pantheon of true champions, yet her unstinting endeavours ensured the downed crew of an RAF Bristol Beaufort bomber were rescued from drowning in the unforgiving waters of the North Sea after being shot down over Norway in 1942.
The blue-chequered hen bird had been taken aboard by the four-man crew as back-up to the aircraft’s radio in case of an emergency.
With the crew floundering in icy waters,winkie was released to raise the alarm. Despite being covered in oil, she flew 120 miles to her loft in Boughty Ferry, near Dundee, where owner George Ross raised the alarm.
Experts at RAF Leuchars were able to pinpoint the aircraft’s position by calculating the pigeon’s flight speed and wind direction and a rescue operation was launched.
A year later she became the first recipient of the PDSA Dickin
Medal with the following citation: “For delivering a message under exceptionally difficult conditions and so contributing to the rescue of an aircrew while serving with the RAF in February 1942.”
‘Winkie flew 120 miles in rescue’