While most of the pigeons never returned, the few that did carried a trove of intelligence that helped the Allies wage war against the Nazis when the struggle was at its early dark moments. Many in MI6, British foreign intelligence, laughed at the attempt, believing the pigeons would simply be eaten by a starving populace, or the Germans would use them to send back misinformation. The hope was that locals resisting the German occupation would find the crates, attach intelligence reports to the pigeons and then release them to fly back to England. In 1941 British intelligence began dropping homing pigeons across Nazi-occupied Europe, each bird contained in a tiny crate equipped with a small parachute and several days’ supply of birdseed and water.
Operation Columba-The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe, by Gordon Corera, William Morrow, New York, 2018, $28.99 Book Review: Operation Columba-The Secret Pigeon Service Close
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