The U.S. Navy’s use of pigeons started many years earlier than World Struggle II, however the birds discovered their most important mission throughout the conflict—flying messages from submarine-hunting blimps throughout a time when radio silence was important.
Pigeons in U.S. Navy Service
Based on the Naval Historical past and Heritage Command, the Naval Academy at Annapolis established the Navy’s first pigeon breeding and coaching program in 1891. The Navy formally established the U.S. Naval Pigeon Messenger Service in 1896, constructing pigeon lofts at main naval services alongside each coasts.
When america declared conflict on Spain in 1898, Navy messenger pigeons carried official communications from ships to shore alongside the Atlantic seaboard. However wi-fi telegraph know-how quickly made the birds out of date. By 1902, all new Navy ships had some type of radio tools, and the service auctioned off its pigeons.
The Navy introduced pigeons again throughout World Struggle I, growing the pigeon coach enlisted score. The Quartermaster (Pigeon) designation required sailors to finish six to 12 months of specialised coaching earlier than receiving orders to air stations with pigeon services.
Following the conflict, pigeons had been once more briefly retired from the service as radio know-how and higher communication practices turned extra widespread.
By WWII, radio communications had been not absolutely safe, and the Navy wanted a brand new strategy to transmit messages with out the enemy listening in.
Silent Communication for Navy Submarine Hunters
Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey served as the first working base for Navy airships within the Atlantic throughout WWII. Pigeons had been routinely taken aboard airships conducting stateside antisubmarine patrols. Each airship carried six pigeons in crates.
The birds solved a tactical downside for the Navy. Navy Okay-class blimps excelled at searching submarines as a result of they may hover for hours over suspected contacts and observe for any motion. However radio transmissions from the airships would alert U-Boats who would then dive and escape earlier than the destroyers arrived.
As an alternative of counting on radio transmissions, the Navy used the pigeons to hold messages in black plastic capsules hooked up to their legs for routine communications, and crimson capsules for emergencies. Upon receiving a message from an airship warning a submarine was within the space, Navy destroyers may shut in for the kill.
Throughout WWII, Navy blimps carried out 37,000 patrols and flew 378,237 hours, primarily off the Atlantic coasts of North and South America, over the Caribbean and later close to the Strait of Gibraltar and the western Mediterranean. Based on the U.S. Naval Institute, not one ship in a convoy escorted by blimps was misplaced to enemy submarine assault.
Pigeons performed an important position in guaranteeing any U-Boats had been detected and intercepted earlier than they may strike the convoys. In truth, the U-Boats would discover themselves beneath assault by escorts earlier than they even realized they’d been compromised—utterly oblivious that it was due to an animal as surprising as a pigeon.
Girls Be a part of the Navy as Pigeoneers
To assist facilitate the coaching and utilization of pigeons throughout the conflict, the Navy established the Specialist (X) (PI) score for pigeon trainers in 1942. In 1943, the score opened to Girls Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES).
One of many ladies who took up this army job was Pearl Nill Robbins who enlisted in September 1943 and commenced energetic responsibility the next month. She was among the many first group of roughly 20 WAVES to finish the six-month coaching program at NAS Lakehurst, incomes the rank of Specialist X (Pigeoneer).
“I knew I used to be a pioneer, first for simply having the ability to be part of the army service, and second as one of many first females to function a pigeoneer,” Robbins informed the Waco Tribune-Herald in 2018. “Similar to ladies who be part of immediately, I wished to serve my nation.”
Necessities had been similar for women and men—expertise with birds or animals, plus the power to drive a automobile to retrieve misplaced pigeons throughout coaching.
The WAVES pigeoneers skilled the birds on the base, however didn’t serve on the blimps themselves. Their job was solely to breed, deal with, prepare and look after the pigeons within the lofts at NAS Lakehurst. As soon as the birds had been skilled and prepared for service, male airship crews took them on antisubmarine patrols whereas the ladies remained on the station sustaining the pigeon program.
Higher Navy Birds Via Breeding
Following the profitable use of pigeons as messengers throughout WWI, the Army’s Sign Corps created the primary breeding packages at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and different services, which developed sooner, stronger birds with higher homing instincts. Based on America in WWII journal, the objective was to supply superior messenger pigeons.
That selective breeding program paid off. Whereas WWI pigeons may fly about 200 miles in a single flight, WWII birds may simply double that distance, with some touring 600 miles. Over brief distances, the birds may method 60 miles per hour, although 35 to 40 miles per hour was typical cruising velocity.
Based on the Nationwide Museum of American Historical past, greater than 95 p.c of messages carried by homing pigeons had been efficiently delivered throughout WWII. Though slower than radio transmissions, the birds had been the subsequent greatest strategy to rapidly transmit safe messages between airships and submarine hunters.
Finish of a Naval Period
The pigeon coach score surprisingly survived lengthy after the conflict ended. Based on Naval Historical past and Heritage Command, the Specialist X pigeon coach score was phased out after WWII when the Navy returned to a peacetime construction.
On Jan. 1, 1948, pigeon trainers had been transferred to an emergency service score class in order that they might be retained and slowly retired from service. The entire unique emergency service scores had been eradicated in January 1961, lastly bringing the Navy’s utilization of pigeons to an official finish.
By then, dependable and higher secured radio communications had rendered the birds utterly out of date because the final pigeon trainers left the service. However for the many years main as much as, throughout and even after WWII, Navy pigeons supplied an important backup communication system when high-tech options failed or would compromise army operations.
