Pigeons served in both wars and saved lives.

Today as we celebrate D day and remember those who served, please also take a moment to remember the animals that also served. 

Pigeons served in both wars and saved lives. 

Cher Ami, who served in the 77th Infantry Division, saved the lives of 194 troops in the “Lost Battalion” and delivered his message despite being shot and heavily injured. After the Germans saw him exiting the bush, they shot him in his crop, blinded him in one eye and his leg was hanging by a tendon. He went down but managed to regain flight, safely delivering his message and saving the troops. 

Commando was a pigeon used in service with the British armed forces during the Second World War to carry crucial intelligence. The pigeon carried out more than ninety missions during the war, and received the Dickin Medal (the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross) for three particularly notable missions in 1945.

Pigeons were used where radio communications had become highly dangerous. A small canister was attached to the pigeon's leg, which contained the information that was being sent. Fewer than one in eight of the pigeons were able to conclude their missions successfully. Most fell victim to the marksmen and falconers that German troops used to intercept these birds along the French coast, while others were killed through bad weather, exhaustion, or by wild birds of prey. Pigeons didn’t ask to be involved in this yet still they served and deserve their rightful recognition. 

Please remember what pigeons have sacrificed for us, only for us to then cruelly desert them and call them vermin, flying rats, pie jokes etc. a pigeon could well have saved one of your ancestors