Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 136, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1919 — GREAT WAR WORK OF PIGEONS ON BATTLEFIELDS AND THE SEA [ARTICLE]

GREAT WAR WORK OF PIGEONS ON BATTLEFIELDS AND THE SEA

Carriers of Vital Messages Ever Since Battle of Marne in 1914. U-BOAT IS TRAPPED BY BIRD Hews From Trenches Taken at Full Speed to Headquarters and Supply ' x Lines—lnformation Gained From Captured Pigeons. Paris.—At the Ternes gate of Paris may be seen a memorial, the work of Bartholdi, on which is . Inscribed: “Monument to the Balloonists and Carrier Vlgeons of 1870.” What memorial ■will acknowledge the services of carrier pigeons in the world’s war of 19141918 remains to be seen, but their work amid barrage fire, bursting shrapnel, ithe zip-zip of machine-gun bullets and the death destroying gases was of enormous value. Carrier pigeons were used on all the Ibattlefronts but their best work was on the western front, from the chanpel to the Swiss "border and from the Alps to the Adriatic gulf. They carfried messages at the Marne, when the [Huns were driven back by Marshal Joffre. Hundreds were used in the battle of the'Tset, In Flanders, when the Belgians and the French halted jthe German advance; and they made many and frequent trips in the first battle of Ypres, in the drive on the ■channel ports when the British, French and Belgians stopped the Germans decisively in the final battle at the close of 1914. They aided in the capture of INeuve Chapelle by the British and ’they died in numbers with the British Tommies at the second battle pf Ypres, when the Germans advanced toward jfiie Yser canal using for the first time [poisonous gas. Again the birds did ’valiant service when the French tried Ito break through in the Champagne in the fall of 1915, and in the whole iserles of the Verdun attacks lasting (through July, oftentimes the only communications with men in advanced stations were the dogs that crept through the barrages and the carrier pigeons that returned with messages. Where telephone and wireless broke down, lend men could not survive the storm icf shell fire, it is recorded that 97 per icent of the messages carried by carrier [pigeons came safely through. Told of German Retreat. When the Germans retired to the •“Hindenburg line,” It was carrier pigieons carried forward into the front advance lines that brought back the pews of the retirement long before telephonic communication could be established. Through the whole area, [1,300 square miles, on a front, of 100 miles from Arras to Soissons, carrier pigeons did their work effectively. And (wherever the Americans fought, at Cantlgny, -Chateau-Thlerry, Torcy, fßouresches, Belleau wood, Conde-en-Brie, Buzancy, Jaulgonne, Fere-en-Tar-•denols, Bligne, Oierges, Vlliers-Argron, IFismes, Frapelle, Bazoches, Juvigny, ISt. Mihiel, Argonne forest —carrier pigeons were likewise on the job. A carrier pigeon aided in capturing p U-boat and her crew. A coast watchler on one of the loneliest parts of the Iwest coast at sundown saw the tifi of la periscope arise and tjjen the conning tower of a U-boat. The underwater boat stopped, and the officers and crew fwere seen on deck. The lookout man tied a note bearing the information to the leg of a carrier pigeon and released St from his basket. The next morning la German submarine, which had run |ont of gasoline, and its officers and icrew were taken to a naval sub-base. A British patrol boat, was discovered by a German submarine and torpedoed and shelled. The skipper, having on boar® a carrier, pigeon, wrote a brief message, telling his position and jwhat had happened. As the boat [sank, the skipper began swimming for |eome wreckage to cling to. The pigeon [went up gradually in a spiral, and the [Germans, seeing it, began shooting at the bird. The skipper, drifting on the (wreckage, gave up hope when he saw fthe bird had been hit. Twenty miles -away, however, it lighted on a patrolling destroyer, its silver-gray plumage

specked with blood, its tall feathers shot away, and one of its wings wounded. The commanding officer read the message, the destroyer was rushed at full speed to the place indicated, and within three-quarters of an hour from the time that the pigeon was sent off, the officers and crew of the patrol were picked Up where they clung to the wreckage. Spy With Pigeohs. An American at Liege, in writing of the German advance, told this incident: “As I returned to the city, walking along the River Meuse, I saw one who, oblivious of war and its alarms, was dangling his legs over the water and peacefully fishing. The battle in the air, which he must have witnessed, had not moved him. The certainty that the Germans were only a few miles away had not concerned him. He smoked his pipe and placidly cast his line. It was soothing to overstrained nerves to see that chap, but it was only a few hours later that I learned a German spy had been arrested as he pgsed as a fisherman, with a creel full of carrier pigeons.” Another story reads: “In the cowl, habit and tonsure that mark the monk a young man told his beads aboard the train bound for Antwerp. And a woman, hardly more than a girl,-"kept her eyes fastened on the man of prayers. She studied on the- devotion with which his fingers slipped from decade to decade of the long, well-worn rosary that hung from the cincture about his waist. But, although his lips appeared to move in humble supplication, the woman saw that he had failed to kiss the cross. The lapse was significant. “ 'Spy!’ the girl hissed into the face of the alleged ascetic. In an instant tw’o guards had seized the man and rushed him down the train corridor. The woman examined the small wicker basket behind in the seat. Lifting the lid, she found three pigeons.” , Get German Pigeons.A news dispatch briefly summarized such a find thus: “A German trawler was captured by a British warship near the Orkney islands to the north of Sco’tland. She is believed to- have been engaged in spying, as carrier pigeons were found os bbard.” Reference has already been made to the number of messages carried back to the French lines by carrier pigeons in the defense of Verdun. A pigeon captured by the French conveyed this Information: “The rolling fire of the enemy with guns of the heaviest caliber is such that sectors S., C., and H. are to a great extent leveled. The garrison, including that of sector V., is disorganized completely. Some of it has been obliged to fall back on the Eighty-third and Ninety-eighth regiments, which also had to retire. “Sector V. (von Raun’s) was subjected to such fire that its observation post was put out of order. All sorties are being bombarded and one Is occu l pied constantly in replacing them. “The battalion asks its. immediate

rellenhls evening by fresh troops. It can fight no longer. “(Signed) “FIRST LIEUTENANT STEINBRECHT.” Carrier pigeons tell headquarters of the progress of a battle. Here is a typical report when the French army fought along the Alsne: “It Immediately appeared that the destruction of' the German defense had been accomplished with as much success as could be hoped for in so difficult a country. By 7:30 a. m. we learned by carrier pigeon and other means that the Chateau de la Motte on the French left near Allemant had been carried, anfi that at the center Mahnaison Fort was taken. At 8 :45 Allemant village had been occupied, the prisoners numbered a thousand, and the French assault troops were advancing across, the central plateau toward Vaudesson and Mont Parnasse quarry. At 10:30 the news was that they were at the north of Hill li3. the further spur of Malmalson plateau, and in a quarry 220 yards west of the fort. By p. m. the villages of Chavignon and Vaudesson, with several neighboring quarries lying on the northern edge of the Aisne hills, had been occupied. Chavignon was the furthest point contemplated in the plan and represented an advance of one and one-half miles made in the face of the best remaining troops of the German empire,” ' Aided by Camouflage. While many carrier pigeons changed their habits of spiraling, finding it a dangerous practice and learnpd. to fly back and then forward at an altitude comparatively low, camouflage aided birds considerably in getting back to their loft carrying with them messages from troops in front. At Fort VauX, in the battle of Verdun, the crown prince’s army had a special group o men. shooting down carrier pigeons as they left the fort. And another story of Verdun. It was at Thiaumont, sixteen times taken; lost and retaken. Wire! ess and telephones had long ceased to exist. No human being could cross the terrain. The commandant w-as in desperate need of communicating with the rear. Suddenly the glasses revealed a dog, crouching on its bell? 7 , crawling through the flashes, and in a moment of temporary lull leaping forward. On its back was a pannier. Nearer and nearer the dog came, and prayers were involuntarily offered as the beast flattened out here and there in the debris for shelter. Another lull and the dog leaped forward and at last it scampered into Thiaumont with the pigeons safe in the pannier. On the dog’s collar was this message. “We relieve you by attack on Froidterre, 3 p. m.” “Stop the German battery on our left. Here are the elements for pointing,” was the written message of the commandant sent back by one of the pigeons. Another momentary lull and the pigeon is released." Dog and pigeon, faithful and distinguished friends of man, have done their work to save civilization.