大象传媒

Explore the 大象传媒
This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving.

15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

大象传媒 Homepage
大象传媒 History
WW2 People's War Homepage Archive List Timeline About This Site

Contact Us

The Blackbird

by Douglas Norman

Contributed by听
Douglas Norman
People in story:听
Douglas Norman
Location of story:听
Flixton, Nr Lowestoft, Suffolk
Background to story:听
Civilian
Article ID:听
A2940833
Contributed on:听
23 August 2004

My story happened one day in January 1942. At the time I was a lad of 11 years old living at Rose Cottage, Flixton, near Lowestoft with my family. On looking out of the window I saw snow laying on the ground and went out to play, but as i went to leave the house, just outside the back door was a dead blackbird. Nothing unusual in that, except that on closer inspection I found it had an aluminium ring on its leg. I can still remember it as it if were yesterday - the ring itselt was about an inch long and 3/16" wide when opened up and bore the words:
"SCHARNHORST GNEISENAU + PRINZ EUGEN, NEWFOUNDLAND 01234567890 GERMANIA".
I took the ring to the local police station at Oulton. The policemen at the time was PC Millar who said that if it was of any use to the war effort I would be informed after the war. This was about a week before these German battleships broke out of Brest Harbour and escaped to Germany through the English Channel. What I would like to know is if there is any record of blackbirds being used in this way during the war.
I only hope this account can be of some use to your research. If you can throw any light on this I would very much like to know.

Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.

Archive List

This story has been placed in the following categories.

Childhood and Evacuation Category
Special Operations and Intelligence Category
Suffolk Category
icon for Story with photoStory with photo

Most of the content on this site is created by our users, who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the 大象传媒. The 大象传媒 is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced. In the event that you consider anything on this page to be in breach of the site's House Rules, please click here. For any other comments, please Contact Us.



About the 大象传媒 | Help | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies Policy