大象传媒

'Kenley Lass and Phillipe'
I would now like to relate another war story and the work of the National Pigeon Service and the S.O.E.[Special Operations Executive] in the opening of the duties that caused the'Jerries'a great deal of trouble and prompted them to take severe measures against any one that was caught , this was the death penalty after the S.S had obtained as much information from them regarding our agents operating in the occupied countries.
The starting of these operations as prompted by Winston Churchill, was the beginning of many
brave and couragous operations that were 'Classified' regarding the work of S.O.E.and the RAF Pigeon Service.Now the agent known as 'Phillipe' was instructed to land by Parachute and contact the resistance movement and was to be picked up by a 'Lysander' aircraft and collate
as much 'INFO' as possible for further action against the Germans. The using of radio signals
was subject to location by the enemy and was unreliable in the early days of these these operations. 'Phillipe'now carried 2 Pigeons with him and being a Frenchman was familiar with the area and knew an old friend that kept a few pigeons but now had a empty loft were he could keep the birds from the prying eyes of the 'Jerries'. He was advised by Sqd Lea Rayner to cut out the toes of 2 socks and place the bird into the sock with the head sticking out of the hole before placing these in his backpack before his 'Para' drop.This was to protect the birds during landing and was successful. His instructions were that in 10 days time a Lysander would pick him up in a pre arranged spot in darknes by the light of hand held torches by the members of the underground movement. After some delay due to bad weather a bird arrived at
its home loft in East Grinstead with its message container to be collected by a despatch rider
and on to 'Wing House' Piccadilly London.The order was given to the O.C.Tangmere but the weather was not favourable for take off,after a slight delay the pilot of the 'SPecial Duties'
squadron of the RAF,decided that although the operation was risky in view of the danger to our
agent from the 'Jerry' forces he took off and was able to pick up 'Phillipe' thereby achieveing
complete success. This now was the starting of many more future operations to be carried out
by RAF Special Duties and S.O.E. from October 1940.
For her part in the successful rescue of one of our agents the Pigeon named' Kenley Lass'
was awarded the animal VC [Dicken Medal] this is just another episode in the effort our birds played in helping to defeat the 'Jerries' in Europe in the war of 1939-45.
More from my 'MEMOIRS'
by FREDDY DYKE.

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