DOVE OF WAR

When the first wave of Canadian troops landed at Dieppe, France, on the morning of August 19, 1942, the news made its way out not via telephone or telegraph, or even on board a ship. Rather, it was entrusted to Beachcomber the carrier pigeon, pictured here in retirement in England in 1943. Canadian troops released the bird with the message attached to his leg. Beachcomber, a member of the British Army Pigeon Service, flew through an intense aerial battle and delivered the information safely to British commanders in England, according to the official citation that accompanied his 1944 Dickin Medal, an award sometimes referred to as the “animal Victoria Cross.”