Tank Pigeons

Tanks were first used in combat during World War I, but they often relied on a very old-fashioned form of communication: pigeons.

From military-history.org:

Where cumbersome, insecure, and unreliable wireless sets, along with telephones, signal lights, and flares failed, pigeons succeeded. When human runners could not pass through walls of barrage fire, pigeons rose above the explosions and the gas and flew swiftly to their lofts, bearing dispatches in tiny cylinders attached to their legs.

A pigeon about to be thrown from a tank during World War I

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Posted By: Alex - Sun May 01, 2022
Category: Animals | Military | War | 1910s

Comments

Several times, Antiques Roadshow (BBC -- UK) has had medals which were awarded to pigeons during wartime. One bird was noted to have been "mentioned in dispatches." Does that mean it carried news of its own exploits?

Posted by Phideaux on 05/01/22 at 03:05 PM

@Phideaux: no, but if it were able to realise what that meant, it would've been proud, and rightly so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentioned_in_dispatches

The bird probably got the Dickin.

Posted by Richard Bos on 05/07/22 at 10:39 AM

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