Homing Pigeons: Following the Flocks Through History
Homing pigeons were mentioned in history, centuries back in 776 B.C. You may be surprised at what they were used for. Homing pigeons were used by the ancient Greeks to announce the winners of the quadrennial Olympic games. They were sent off in the direction of every village in Greece to inform the inhabitants that there was a hero coming home. This was one of the very first instances of how communication had evolved to move faster than the word of mouth could carry. With the heads up of the winner, the villages could prepare a celebration and a feast to honor their new found hero. When the Olympic games started back up in 1896, they even still used carrier pigeons to spread the news of the winners. Demonstrating how, even after over a thousand years, pigeons could carry the message home.
Another early example of the homing pigeon in literature is the story of Noah's Ark in the Bible. Doves and pigeons are apart of the same family of birds, Columbidae. Noah sent out a dove to see if the flood was over and it returned carrying an olive branch. According to this piece, the dove was able to find land and fly back to the ark amidst the endless waves. It was carrying one of the most important messages of the early Bible books, that the flood was over.
In the following centuries, pigeons became the popular and fast way to send messages across long distances, in an age before trains, cars, and planes even existed. Genghis Khan even used the birds to communicate across his vast empire. The average homing pigeon, while flying long distance, can reach speeds up to 100 miles per hours. That is faster than many cars are legally allowed to drive. Homing pigeons were the quickest and most secure way to send information, especially in an age where travel was limited. They allowed communication to spark between many groups of people, in which it would have been impossible otherwise and with this foot-in-the-door type of innovation, it only caused humanity to work harder to send information faster.
Even in more recent history, pigeons have been used to send messages in war times on both sides and pigeons weren't a solo show, many people had to work together to train and send these pigeons out.
In World War I, pigeons were the most trusted source of communication, even though they had telephones at the time, they were extremely unreliable. France and Belgium, when they entered the war, recognized pigeons as a key to national defense. One pigeon alone carried over 20,000 messages for the war effort. The most well-known war pigeon was Cher Ami. He was the last of eight pigeons as one of the American forces was under heavy fire, not only by Germans, but also by friendly fire as well. Cher Ami was sent off with the message of help to the nearby backup. After being shot, losing a leg, and flying 24 miles, Cher Ami made it back to his home with the message that saved many of the mens' lives that day. He delivered the message and saved lives.
In World War II, two pigeons alone saved the lives of three thousand people. The war pigeon, William of Orange, delivered dozens of war messages, often when the Allied forces communication systems would go down. The other war pigeon, G.I. Joe, saved the life of a thousand when he flew 20 miles back to Allied headquarter to inform the team that the enemy forces had pulled out of the area and there was no real reason to bomb the city. Paddy the pigeon even helped with the D-Day invasion, fighting off German hawks to get crucial intel to the Allies about the invasion.
As technology advanced, the need for carrier pigeons lessened and they are no longer used on a wide scale. China, however, still raises homing pigeons in case their technology ever goes dark. But to this day in the rest of the world, people can still be found owning and using carrier pigeons to send messages locally in a grab for nostalgia and simpler times. The world may have changed, but the pigeons instincts to go home to their nest will never diminish.
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