大象传媒

Chapter 13
The N.P.S
The birds that I supplied to the National Pigeon Service were mainly squeakers so the problem of the birds returning to my loft was non existant,unlike the older and more experienced birds that were required for active operations with the Army and the Royal Air Force.IT was for this reason that the loft was fitted with an alarm system to record any arrivals at whatever time they might appear carrying their message containers.Amongst the family and myself we were able to keep a very keen eye on the returning birds should I be away from the loft when other ARP and other service duties were involved. Some of my birds were used by the Service lofts for breeding their own young birds which were later dispatched to other units wherever they were required.The Army and the Royal Air Force pigeon service required birds for the expanding operations mainly in the Middle East which I believe was under the direction of Major Neilson Hutton. Here at home things were in the capable direction of Squadron Leader W D,Lea Rayner,as both Neilson Hutton and Lea Rayner were pigeon fanciers of some standing in their own right in pre-war days.Sqd leader Rayner was the king pin in advising and the direction of the RAFs pigeon in the use of our winged messingers by Coastal and Bomber Command.The NPS did involve other duties by supplying birds for Special Operations with SOE
which was organsed by Winston to operate with the 'Secret Army'on the continent to bring back information from our Agents operating in occupied Europe. The birds were the other means of communication, apart from radio contact which was liable to be intercepted by the German forces and proved to be unreliable as many were put out of action and damaged beyond repair when they landed with the agents parachuted into enemy occupied territory. The information that reached London was of vital importance from these special operations,and gave us the knowledge of the secret weapons the 'Jerries'could use against us at any time. Consistant with these operations these agents also organised resistance groups to cause the Jerry High Command as much trouble as possible by sabotage methods.These agents of SOE were a thorn in the side of the German military and had severe punishment if caught,which was often the death penalty and some other form of torture to expose the full details of the other members of these resistance groups responsible.A great deal of information was being relayed back to London by these methods and as far as the help that pigeons gave they proved that they were providing a very valuable service to this countries war effort.This was to be proved as a special medal was awarded to animals that had taken part in two world wars,bearing the name the 'DICKEN MEDAL'the animal V.C. I shall be giving more details of these remarkable awards in a later chapter of this book.
CHapter 17.
Easy on POWs.
Now one thing that seemed to worry many of us was the way we treated enemy Prisoners of War in the UK as opposed to the treatment of our lads in German and Japanese camps.Our boys suffered appalling treatment in the hands of our enemies,yet here we seemed to treat their prisoners like friends.They were allowed out of their camps to roam the streets and make partners with English girls which annoyed many local people and servicemen,knowing that the only time our boys were out of camp was when they had escaped at the risk of being shot.IT was rather degrading to witness girls offering pleasures to these prisoners particularly the 'ITYEs' when you realised how much our lads and lassies suffered abroad. Some English girls found romance with our American Allies and married their partners,but at least they were on our side. These girls were known as G.I. Brides and emigrated to the USA after the war.This was more acceptable than 'Fraternising'with the enemy.There was one particular instance that I recal,an ITalian POW was seeing a local girl who was also dating an American from the nearby 'Yankee' camp, the Yank was so incensed he shouldered his rifle and shot the 'ITYE',it was fortunate for him that the wound was only minor and not fatal,so the Yank escaped with only a caution. IT was becoming a funny old war as I remember playing a football match against the army camp guarding the POWs at Maxstoke Castle,and during the match my mate Tommy
Williams was involved in a tackle with the camp goalkeeper and suffered a broken leg. Now the odd thing about this was that the first person to attend to Toms injury was an ITalian Officer who was watching the game with dozens of other prisoners along the touchline.He was a Docter and was able to help quickly as Tommy was in intense pain,so in that respect it proved to be helpful in having prisoners as spectators. These prisoners were being allowed to work on the land as the War Agricultural Committee had asked for help,gangs were transported from the prison camps to various sites for a working day.After arriving back at their camps they were allowed into villages to mingle with the locals and enjoy themselves.What a liberty when our prisoners in Japan in particular were made to work on the notorious Burma Railway in conditions that were totally inhuman. The Japs did not believe in soft treatment for prisoners,as to be taken captive was a disgrace to their family as governed by their traditions. Prisoners in Germany were in the main treated a little better but the Nazis had no easy touch for any of our lads particularly if they had been involved in trying to escape.Quite a number were caught and shot and given no chance to try again.
This was the sort of thing that annoyed people here at home,and it was very hard not to take it out of these prisoners,more so if they had some member of the family or close friends killed in action against these enemies.Yet some girls had no guilty conscience regarding their behaviour and looked to be enjoying their new found friends.

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