As part of my preparations for a talk on the ‘cipher pigeon’ that I’ll be giving at Westminster Under School in a couple of months’ time, I’ve been making sure that there aren’t any books I should have read.
The one I’ve most wanted a copy of is “Memoirs of a Wartime Teenager” By Frederick Dyke: but this is out of print and out of reach, so I’d need to book a day at the British Library to have a look at it. Perhaps I’ll get a chance shortly.
However, I recently found another book that I knew instantly I had to have: “Pigeons in World War II” by W. H. Osman (presumably a relative of “the late Lt.-Col A[lfred] H[enry] Osman, CBE”, who wrote extensively about pigeons under the pen-name “Squills”).
Though having said that, it’s not so much a ‘book’ as a book-shaped database: firstly, of letters from top-ranking officials thanking the nation’s pigeon breeders and trainers for their outstanding effort in WWII; and secondly, of microstories describing individual pigeons’ contributions to the same war effort.
Cross-referencing and correlating these pigeony microstories does conjure up a number of slightly larger pigeon-related narratives. For example, it seems clear that many of the pigeons employed by the US Army in Normandy for D-Day were bred and trained in and around Plymouth.
Yet the question I particularly wanted to try to answer – of course – is if we can find out any more about the two wartime pigeons “NURP 40 TW 194” and “NURP 37 DK 76” who were apparently carrying the two copies of our mysterious (or if not ‘mysterious’ then certainly frustrating) enciphered message.
Even though single-letter NURP pigeons (e.g. “NURP.42.A.4708”, “Bred by N.P.S. member, H. R. Veal, Basingstoke, Hants”, and “Trained by R.A.F. Station, Gillingham”) had a fairly random geographic distribution, I think it’s fair to conclude that multi-letter NURP pigeons tended to have at least some method to their naming madness. For example, “TTT” always corresponded to a group of pigeon breeders and trainers in Ipswich: “WAC” corresponded to Walthamstow, “SBC” to Shepherd’s Bush, “DX” to Doncaster, “WMK” to West Malling, and so forth. Additionally, many three-letter sets beginning with N– were from Nottingham, while many three-letter sets beginning with P– were from Plymouth. Just to keep you on your toes, it turns out that “XEB” was from Bexleyheath / Welling in Kent.
At the same time, there were also a fair few exceptions with no obvious rationale (“BFF” was from Poole, etc), so there was no universal naming convention, and hence we must tread carefully with our heavy-booted inferences.
The nearest to our DK and TW letter-groups was “RP.40.DUK.57” (p.116), a pigeon from an unnamed Thames Estuary breeder that was liberated in France on D-Day (i.e. the pigeon was liberated, not the breeder *sigh*), but who didn’t get home until the 8th of the following month. There was nothing remotely like the “TW” group to be seen.
I then checked this against the Special Section pigeon archive I had previously photographed at Bletchley Park (just to be sure), but that had no additional information (on its p.47) beyond what I’d just found:-
However… when I double-checked this against the list of owners in the Thames Estuary Group, one name in particular stood out like a severed thumb (guess who was just reading Conan Doyle’s “The Engineer’s Thumb” with his son?!):
So: my current best guess is that of our two pigeons, the “DK” one may well have been owned by L. Duke of The Stores, Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire – so I’m now following this up, and will see where it leads.
At the same time, another owner from the same Thames Estuary Group was W. H. Twigg of 71 Stevenson Avenue, Tilbury. Might it be that the “TW” was short for “Twigg”? It’s entirely possible (but still a bit of a long shot).
Hopefully, we shall see before too long…
Is it possible that the structure which is described as a birdhouse on Greenwich University’s School of Architecture’s drawings/maps MAY have been pigeon coop?
BTW (while we are discussing pigeons) would you be able to find any films of the actions of ‘parlor pigeons’ and ‘tumbler pigeons’ ?
Fascinating!
Would it have been possible that the military telegraph systems in London may have “enlisted” pigeons from private lofts? If so, have you already gleaned all the info you could? Would the Royal archives have anything of interest available to the public domain?
Youtube has a nice story : WAR OF THE BIRDS
Nick, any chance that you can bring up a map of the various pigeon lofts? Maybe the routes the birds flew — just for a better picture of England’s geography and flight paths.
Several years ago, a neighbor of ours would loose his homing-pigeons for free-wheeling flight — beautiful!
😉
Yesterday I was able to watch a documentary film of the military messenger pigeons in action. I had no idea of how crucial their activities were. It wasn’t enough that they had to avoid being shot down — they also had to learn how to avoid hawk attacks.
Amazing! I hope you are planning to show that film as part of your talk. Beautiful birds; even dead ones found in chimneys.
BTW, Xplor, thanks for the film reference to war of the birds. Fascinating, yet heart-breakingly sad. Were any of the medals post-humous?
Maria Elisabeth Dickin established the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals a still popular animal rights group in England and yes they give out medals when it fits their goals. It don;t have to be a real animal.
Have enjoyed the booklet and would like to share some info from it with fellow pigeon fanciers . am I allowed to copy some pages and share ??? The book is out of print and am told this is the reason I would be able to share. Any opinions ???
Bill Albers: it’s normally ok to share a moderate amount of older (but still in copyright) books among enthusiasts. Note that Major Osman was still writing books in 1960, so his works will be in copyright for some years yet.
Thanks Nick a book store owner said as the book is out of print copying is permissible as long as it is out of print for this long a period. I had planned to share it with enthusiasts YES. Matter of fact to use it in Honouring our Veterans Pigeoneers and Pigeons. Many do not know we used Pigeons in Wartime. The use of this info is not to make any profit ! Thanks for the info and have you got any idea as to the latest books Major Osman is writing ????