大象传媒

ANIMALS in WAR.

I must applaude the 大象传媒 war team for now asking for stories RE 'Animals in Wartime' as this is the very purpose of my postings to the site.For my part I have written a book which I hope to have published in a short time giving the details of the value and the life saving exploits of the humble Racing Pigeon.There is to be erected in Park Lane London later this year the 'ANIMALS in WAR' memorial which I hope will bring to the general public the knoweledge that the coveted 'Dicken Medal' the animal 'VC' has been awarded to 55 gallant animals in service to the saving of human life.
I have already entered some stories of the part our pigeons played and the winning of 32 out of the 55 medals awarded,yet the general public have no idea that we owe so much to the animals/birds that played such a vital part in helping to defeat the 'Jerries' and the 'Japs' when our country faced its greatest danger of being invaded.
My postings are 'Kenley Lass and Phillipe'and some pages from my book
'Memoirs of a Wartime Teenager'.
I will now add a few more exploits of our birds that were awarded the
Animal 'VC'and homed to their lofts, some times injured and thereby saved many lives.

'WHITE VISION'
for delivering a message under difficult conditions leading to the rescue of 11 members of a RAF flying boat that had ditched in the sea off the Hebrides in 1943.The weather was bad and and the search was called off,but White Vision arrived at her home loft at about5pm,this bird had flown over 60 miles of heavy seas against a head wind of 25mph in poor visibility of some 100yds when she was released and only a 300yd visibility when she arrived.A wonderful achievement and a noble effort.

'WINKIE'
On Feb 28th 1942 a damaged Beaufort ditched after a 'Strike'off the
Norwegian coast,and partly broke up 120 miles from the Scottish coast
This pigeon escaped from his container and fell into the oily sea and struggled clear.It was 129mls to base,the nearest land 120mls and only 1-1/2 hours of daylight left. The pigeon homed soon after dawn the next morning exhausted and wet,as the air search crew had a poor radio fix which was unsuccessful, Sgt Davidson of the RAF pigeon service deduced from the arrival of the bird and its condition that the search area was incorrect.The search was redirected in accordance with his advice and 15 minutes later the crew were located and rescued. The crew later gave a dinner in London to the pigeon and her owner in appreciation of her life saving fly and christened her 'WINKIE'

'GI'JOE'
This bird was credited with the most outstanding flight by a US army pigeon in WW2 by making a 20 mile flight in the same number of minutes.It brought the message just in time to save the lives of at least 100 Allied troops from being bombed by our own planes after they had captured the area from the Germans.

I have many other stories to tell of the life saving ability of our
pigeons that leaves us oweing a debt to their humble way of life that very few of the 'JOE' public ever realised.Much of our wartime exploits were never revealed as much of our work in this respect was
'Classified'but at least I can try and enlighten some people in the valiant and award winning ways of the British racing pigeon.
All for now. Keep watching. FREDDY DYKE.

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