War pigeons, commonly referred to as homing pigeons or carrier pigeons, are domesticated rock doves (Columba livia) selectively bred and trained to carry messages in military operations. Due to their speed, endurance, altitude, and homing ability, pigeons were frequently used as military messengers because they were often more reliable and difficult to intercept than other forms of wartime communication. Some pigeons received military honors for their service including 32 recipients of the Dickin Medal, and Cher Ami who was awarded the Croix de Guerre for delivering messages during World War I. During World War I and World War II, carrier pigeons were used by the Australian, French, German, American, and UK forces, to transport messages back to their home coop behind the lines. When they landed, wires in the coop would sound a bell or buzzer and a soldier of the Signal Corps would know a message had arrived. The soldier would go to the coop, remove the message from the canister, and send it to its destination by telegraph, field phone, or personal messenger. Success rates for message delivery by war pigeons reportedly reached 95 percent. A carrier pigeon's job was dangerous. Nearby enemy soldiers often tried to shoot down pigeons, knowing that released birds were carrying important messages. Some of these pigeons became quite famous amongst the infantrymen for whom they worked. One pigeon, named "Spike", flew 52 missions without receiving a single wound. Another, named Cher Ami, lost his foot and one eye, but his message got through, saving a large group of surrounded American infantrymen.
Breeds The breed most commonly used in modern military history was the Racing Homer, developed in Belgium and England during the 19th century through the crossbreeding of various pigeon breeds, primarily the Smerle, French Cumulet, English Carrier, Dragoon, and the now-extinct Horseman. The Cumulet contributed endurance and the capacity to fly for extended periods without tiring, while the Carrier passed on the ability to navigate home from great distances. The Racing Homer can maintain an average flying speed of approximately 97 km/hr (60 mph), with recorded flights of up to 1,800 km (1,100 miles).
History Carrier pigeons have served military forces across multiple continents and civilizations for over three thousand years. Among the earliest recorded instances, the Sultan of Baghdad used message-carrying pigeons fitted with small capsules around 1150 BCE, establishing one of the first known organized military pigeon networks. In the sixth century BC, Cyrus, king of Persia, used carrier pigeons to communicate with various parts of his empire. In Ancient Rome, Julius Caesar used pigeons to send messages to the territory of Gaul. In 1815, a carrier pigeon brought news of the Duke of Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo to London before any human courier would do so. During the 19th-century Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), the four-month Prussian siege of Paris produced one of the most significant demonstrations of carrier pigeons in military history. With Prussian forces encircling the city and all land routes sealed, the French military used balloons to transport homing pigeons out of Paris and past enemy lines, from where the birds were released and flew back into the besieged city. Each pigeon carried microfilmed dispatches, allowing a single bird to transport hundreds of compressed dispatches on a single strip of film. Aware of the pigeon network, the Prussian military deployed trained hawks specifically to hunt the pigeons before they could reach their destination. Across the full duration of the siege, approximately 400 birds transported nearly 115,000 official government communications and close to one million private messages into the besieged capital. The outcome of the siege established carrier pigeons as a proven and reliable method of military communication, and their use was well regarded in military planning in the decades leading up to World War I.
Spanish–American War The United States military first used pigeons for communication during the Spanish–American War. The Coast Signal Service used pigeons that were trained to return to lighthouses along the Atlantic Coast, and the North Atlantic Squadron relied on the Naval Pigeon Messenger Service during exercises. Both the Boston Homing Club and the National Association of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers offered their birds to the war effort. After war was declared, the Naval Pigeon Messenger Service provided communications between ships off the East Coast. Pigeons were used on torpedo boats at naval headquarters in Key West and on ships leaving San Francisco. A regiment from Colorado sailing to the Philippines sent messages back to San Francisco to notify General Wesley Merritt of their progress. However, developments in wireless telegraphy led to the discontinuation of the Naval Pigeon Messenger Service, and the birds were auctioned off.
World War I
Homing pigeons were used extensively during World War I. In 1914, during the First Battle of the Marne, the French army advanced 72 pigeon lofts with the troops. The US Army Signal Corps used 600 pigeons in France alone. One of their homing pigeons, a Blue Check cock named Cher Ami, was awarded the French "Croix de Guerre with Palm" for heroic service delivering 12 important messages during the Battle of Verdun. On his final mission in October 1918, he delivered a message over 25 miles (40 km) despite having been shot through the breast or wing. The crucial message, found in the capsule hanging from a ligament of his shattered leg, saved 194 US soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division's "Lost Battalion" in the Battle of the Argonne, in October 1918. When Cher Ami died, he was mounted and is part of the permanent exhibit at the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution.
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