The World War II Pigeons and the Secret Columba Messages

Unless someone publishes a similar book, The World War II Pigeons and the Secret Columba Messages will be the first collection of some of the Columba messages held at The National Archives, London. Residents of occupied Europe wrote the messages and pigeons delivered the messages to Britain. The British created Operation Columba to gather intelligence from occupied France, Holland, and Belgium. From 1941 to 1945, British aircraft dropped approximately 17,000 pigeons in small containers attached to small parachutes. Those who found the pigeon also found a questionnaire, rice paper, a pencil, and a set of instructions for how to attach the message to the pigeon. Under the German occupation, sending a message with a pigeon was a crime punishable by death. This made the messages a unique form of communication, because unlike diaries or letters, the writer had little time to reflect and make decisions about what to write. The longer someone kept a pigeon, the more likely they were to be discovered. People risked their lives to give information about ammo dumps, troop movements, BBC transmissions, radar stations, the morale of the German soldiers, airfields, and their personal experiences. Some messages contain copious amounts of military intelligence. Some messages include military intelligence and also expressions of frustration and despair. The World War II Pigeons and the Secret Columba Messages does not include introductions to or summaries of the messages. The reader can absorb the information and the emotions without the influence of a contemporary analysis. Perhaps this book would be useful in history courses. The book contains the report on the German reaction to Operation Columba. The Germans deployed falcons to kill the pigeons. They also used decoy pigeons. The Germans trained pigeons to fly back to German pigeon lofts and they outfitted them with counterfeit British message capsules. The message writer would reveal intelligence intended for the British, but t