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You've probably never thought about the military use of pigeons to communicate, but that was
a common practice during World War I in particular.
So I had the chance to write on that, and then I was asked to speak on a podcast called
All About Pigeons.
So here's my explanation to the pigeon community about the use of those majestic birds in the
military to communicate between the front and headquarters.
Hello and welcome to the All About Pigeons podcast.
We have a very special episode for you today, so stick around.
Welcome to the All About Pigeons podcast.
Today we have with us Jim Falzon.
He is the lead on VeteransRadio podcast.
He is a veterans disability lawyer and served in the late 1970s.
He's been on air with the VeteransRadio since 2014.
He has built LegalHelp for Veterans PLLC into one of the premier veteran disability firms
in the country.
Jim has also written a book on Chermi and pigeons who have served in the war, and we're
going to talk about that today.
So Jim, thanks for coming on and talking with us.
Well, Philip, glad to be here.
And with my many things I do in the veterans space, I'm a veteran myself.
And as you mentioned, a veterans disability lawyer with LegalHelp for Veterans, that
got us involved in VeteransRadio, which has been on the air for 21 years, and doing podcasts
for about six of them now.
Every week we publish something new at veteransradio.org.
And along the way, I started writing about issues interesting that I felt were interesting
to veterans, and many of them are found at a website called HomeOfHeroes.com, which
has all kinds of stories on metal liner recipients, the silver star recipients.
And other things I found interesting, and one of them was the story of Chermi.
So as time goes on, you start to accumulate more and more information, and you say, well,
I didn't know that.
I got to push something out about that.
And that's how we got here.
Okay, yeah, it is definitely a lot of people I feel like are just completely unaware about
the role that pigeons served in wartime.
I mean, just completely unaware about it.
It's really, when you say it out loud, it becomes really simple because military maneuvers
are all about communication.
It's about what headquarters wants you to do and what the guy in the field can actually
get done.
And oftentimes those aren't the same things, because the headquarters doesn't have the
right information.
So you need a way to communicate between the front line and back where the troops are
headquartered, where those generals are, if you will.
And so you have to have communication.
And we live in an age where you and I are doing this over the internet, where everything
is digital and technology wise, but you don't have to go very far back before there were
cell phones, before there was internet, before there was GPS.
And now you get yourself into, well, how did they communicate?
How did the forces know what to do and what they were facing?
And really, pigeons have been involved in military affairs at least as far back as 1878.
And were involved in the US Army Signal Corps.
I think they got out a bit about March of 1957.
But a long history and valiant service by pigeons to allow communications at the very
high and the most present levels.
Absolutely.
I had a, my uncle, JR Williams was in the Pigeon Signal Corps in World War II.
And there was some pretty, you know, really neat articles about that and how they did
the training and things like this.
And really, I think like Cherome is probably the most, for the people who do know, she's
the most well known.
Well, first off, I guess you wrote the book on this and I hear, when I hear the story,
I hear it said both ways.
Do you know if Cherome was a hen or a cockbird?
I heard primarily that it was a he.
Okay.
We'll just say that then.
We'll say that Cherome passed in 1918.
So it's a long time ago.
Anyway, you'll look at it.
Nobody was around who really knows the truth.
Maybe the Smithsonian does because that's where Cherome resides.
That's right.
Yeah.
So she's still there.
She's all taxidermied up in at the Smithsonian, right?
Absolutely.
And she's one of a number, I think there's three other four others that were so significant
in their military service.
They have the same honor.
Let's get into the meat potatoes on this.
Can you give us a breakdown of the story of Cherome?
Yeah.
And you got to think back to World War One, where there were no cellular communications.
So the Americans were over in France fighting in France.
To communicate, you had to string half a wire between the frontline troops and headquarters.
So it was easy to disrupt communications by cutting the wires, which both sides did to
each other.
Also, World War One was a trench warfare.
So a lot of the troops dug trenches and were fighting from the low ground.
So again, not a great way to be able to communicate.
You couldn't use signals, you couldn't use lights.
There were no real radio communications at that point in time.
The general in charge of that French expeditionary course through the US was General John Pershing,
Blackjack Persian.
Great name for a general.
Blackjack Persian got to France and he realized my troops are out there.
And he was a guy who wanted to be at the front of the troops.
But he said, I can't communicate with him.
He actually did two things.
One of them was both of them are very interesting.
One of them is relevant to this conversation.
He had 800 pigeons brought over by the signal port to France because he knew that they would
be successful in flying their routes and communicating.
The other thing he should do that should be mentioned in the past, at least.
He made a call to French speaking American women, single women, who were working for
AT&T.
And he brought them over, I think around 500, something like 2000 volunteers, but about
500 came over to France and worked as telephone operators on the front lines because they
were faster and better than the army soldiers who were trying to connect calls between headquarters
and connecting with the French troops and the folks in the trenches.
These women were somewhat known as hello girls, have a whole interesting history themselves.
But the pigeons really got used by Pershing to send out with the frontline troops so that
if there was no wire communications in which in many places there weren't, you could release
the pigeons with messages back to headquarters and Pershing's command could get the latest
intel of where artillery was needed, where troops needed to be strengthened, that sort
of thing.
And what's really amazing is the claim that 90% of those missions flown by pigeons for
Blackjack Pershing were successful.
The message got through.
That's a good percent.
That's very effective.
I don't know about you, but my cell phone doesn't work that well.
So Cheromey, who I think was born in the fall of 1918, made his way to France.
She flew 12 missions, came back from France, wounded.
She had received injury to her eye, her leg, and had taken a graze in the breast from a
little girl because both sides knew the others were using pigeons to communicate.
And so shooting them down was very game.
She came back to the United States, ultimately passed away in June of 1919.
You think about it, didn't have a very long life.
But in those 12 missions, 12 successful missions, because you don't come back unless it's a
successful mission, really contributed to the war effort, and there's one really the
last famous battle that she was instrumental in that, if you'd like it, I'd be willing
to talk about.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's kind of like her glory story right there.
It really is.
There was a Lost Battalion.
And again, if any of your listeners are interested, they can Google Lost Battalion World War I
and all kinds of stories will pop up.
And what had happened is in this trench warfare, some American troops dug in at the side of
a hill, were really surrounded by the Germans and couldn't find a way out.
The headquarters wasn't exactly sure where they were at.
It was told in artillery fire onto where they thought they were at this hill.
And the only problem is it was inaccurate.
Without good information, the artillerymen can't do their jobs right.
Ultimately the major who was involved, Major Witzley, used his last pigeon, Cherome, wrote
a quick and simple note attached it to her leg and center off.
The note was, this is really interesting because it's so abbreviated, right?
So the note was simply, we are along the road parallel to 276.4.
Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us.
For heaven's sake, stop it.
That was the note.
And made its war back to artillery.
They adjusted their sights and ultimately pounded the Germans enough to free up the
Lost Battalion.
But all of that could have happened without this, if you will, scrawny little bird.
Communicating back to headquarters, what was so critical, so important, which was, coordinates,
where are you?
We're trying to help.
They certainly didn't want friendly fire to occur.
So it became really a life-saving mission that Cherome had.
And ultimately the Lost Battalion was no longer lost.
As a result, Cherome received the French Croix de Bure, one of its highest awards in military
terms.
It also received medals for bravery.
It was the British, I believe, gave it a dick in metal, which is for gallantry under
fire.
So there was a real recognition of the immense value played by this little bird in its efforts
to let the artillery folks know where the Lost Battalion was.
And how many soldiers were in that battalion?
Do you remember?
I think the number was, it was a decent amount of men, too.
It was.
I think they were less, they may have started at 500, they were under 200 at the time that
the bird, they were getting wiped out, and they would have been wiped out.
That's not the only pigeon that there's a real history for during World War I.
Some of the names are somewhat famous.
I don't have the details in all of their missions, but there's a pigeon known as Mokr, M-O-C-K-E-R,
who lost the eye and is noted in the literature.
Another one called President Wilson, who lost the foot.
The I. Joe, famous one that helped troops in Italy and saved a town where the United
States Air Force Army Air at the time was going to bomb this Italian town because it
thought the Germans still had control and it was a pigeon that blew back the information
that the Germans had left.
Thereby saving the town, saving the civilians from this, what would have been a horrific
bombing raid.
I'll give you an example of how it was used both ways.
There's a famous World War I German pigeon, which we in the United States call Kaiser.
At the end of the war, Kaiser and nine of his mates were captured, brought back to the
United States and actually toured the United States as a pigeon peel-doughnuts as a way
to raise sure bomb money for United States Army.
Kaiser had a pretty good life, pretty good peel-doughnut life.
He lasted 31 years, died in 1949.
During that time, he started 75 pigeons that the Army signal court would produce primarily
World War II.
That's incredible, 31 years.
As I said, I think the signal court took pretty good care of him and he turned out to be probably
the longest POW pigeon ever held.
So I thought that was pretty interesting.
And I said earlier that Sharon Mead is in the Smithsonian, but so is Kaiser.
A couple of other pigeons by the name of Global Girl and Anzio Boy who played different roles
in World War II.
Anzio Boy, as you might imagine, with missions in Italy.
So there's a long history of this and you don't have to go too far back to see the importance
of pigeons in communications in war time efforts.
I got younger kids, so we've got some of the, I think the G.I. Joe is one of the kids' books
we have and there's a kids' book on Sharon Mead.
And there's also a lot of YouTube animations, so anybody with kids or teachers out there
for other kids, there's some pretty good places where you can watch these stories also.
One of the things that is so interesting and you're keeping it alive with all about pigeons
broadcast is this whole idea of how intelligent holding pigeons are, how capable they are.
Now us over on the veterans' radio side, we think it's an interesting story, but we don't
know, we don't appreciate maybe the level at which the training went on, the breeding
went on, because the Army sold off its last pigeons in March of 1957.
So it's a long time since the Army would have utilized the home pigeons.
And that to me, I mean, I'd like to hear your thoughts because we've heard about the Army
in China that they've actually been going the other way.
They bought like 4,000 breeders a couple years ago, which means they probably get 8,000 pigeons
today.
You know, they're still doing it.
I think France still has a pigeon core.
I mean, what are your thoughts about that, Jim?
I mean, what do you think about us getting rid of that?
It's interesting you raise this because as I was getting prepped for the show, Philip,
and thinking about this more, it turned from a curiosity to a national security issue.
If you think about, and I didn't know what China was doing, that even makes me more concerned.
But if you think about, and we certainly had programs on EMPs, weapons, if you think about
cyber attacks, you knock down our satellites, you knock out our GPS, you knock down our
communications, we're going to be right back to where we need the pigeons.
We are so dependent on the electronics today, you cut our underwater cables or internet
and we're blacked off from countries on the west and on the east coast.
So yeah, I wouldn't think it's worth at least thinking about, should there be some specialty
in understanding how this can be a tool for the military, which has a long history of
using animals successfully in warfare, whether it's horses or dogs, the dogs in Afghanistan,
in Iraq, or well known, dolphins.
Maybe it would be prudent to think about coming back around to this, and particularly if China
is doing it, there might be a reason why China is doing it, cutting communications to Taiwan,
for example, but it also takes a community like yours that are breeders and racers of
pigeons to step up and say, hey, I can help.
The world where the US military is all about, it's a volunteer corps, very few of us know
somebody or are involved with somebody who's actually participating in keeping the peace
around the world.
And I'm sure if that time came, the pigeon community would come forward.
Yeah, I wish that we still had something, one loft, just give us one loft out there
and just to play with it.
There is still, I think it was in, oh, probably going to get the country wrong, in India or
something that was actually still doing a optional delivery service using pigeons.
And there's some company here in the States that will deliver letters.
It's kind of like a short distance sort of a thing, just kind of a novelty thing.
But I still think, they've been a part of human existence for thousands of years.
They're not just going to get irrelevant because we have smartphones now.
And to put all of our trust and faith into that, I think that would be really helpful.
And I don't know how true this is, but have you ever come across anything where the, because
like you said, both countries, everybody uses pigeons during the war.
Were there any countries that were using falconry at all to take down the pigeons?
I mean, sort of just shooting at them?
And not aware of the falconry use.
The British had a lot of pigeons involved in the war effort and World War II in particular.
You can imagine the ability to fly back across the channel and something like 32 British
pigeons received the dick and metal for gallantry under fire.
So that gives you some sense of the level of effort that was being used by the British.
But I'm not aware of falconry.
I'm aware of, as I say, it was fair game to shoot out.
And actually in World War II, there was a army technical metal, which I'm looking at
as thought it was kind of comical, but serious on how to release pigeons from aircraft.
Oh, that was sort of interesting.
I do know that they were often strapped in cage to paratroopers who would jump out of
their airplanes and then when they got them down on the ground, that's how they would
get them there.
But they were also apparently released from the aircraft, which I find sort of interesting.
But they also didn't fly at the same speeds and they weren't jets sucking in everything
either.
At one time, this was a real serious endeavor by the US Army single corps.
I heard a story too about it was a ship that was going down and it was when the pigeon
came back, they did the triangulation based on how fast the pigeon can fly when it got
there and they were able to find the boat.
Whereas otherwise, the ocean is so fast that it just would have been hard to even find
the sailors out there.
It doesn't surprise me.
I mean, again, those are the kind of stories and those are the sorts of creative efforts
that the Army and the Navy were used with trying to have communications and recognizing
that pigeons are our best way to communicate in the world at that time.
During the Allied effort, is it true that a lot of, like you're saying, that there was
horses and dogs and pigeons.
So when the war was over, did those animals get left behind?
Obviously, Cherokee came back probably because of the status of her and everything else.
But did the other ones just get left back there?
Many were left behind.
It's one of the real efforts that they're trying to make out of Afghanistan is to bring
the search and rescue dogs back somewhat successfully.
History will tell us over time how successfully, when you watch history unfold, you don't really
get the full truth.
You get the sanitized version.
But we've had a number of stories on veteransradio.org where dog handlers have told their stories
about how difficult it was to get them to clear their dog back to the United States.
A dog named Fred that was not a qualified service dog was smuggled back into the United
States with some hoodwicking of BHL carriers to get it out of Afghanistan, Germany and
ultimately to the United States.
It's a great dog story, but it just shows you the love and the commitment and connection
soldiers have to these animals such as these pigeons who have helped them, who have shared
risks with them, who have been injured like they may have been injured.
I told you earlier about lost eyes and legs and shot in the breast and all of that.
Those are all things with men in combat would really relate to and have strong attachments
to as a result.
The reason they were getting left was it was a quarantine situation, right?
They just didn't want to bring back a bunch of animals in case one of them had something.
Absolutely.
It's a concern for the safety of other animals and people back in the United States, all
with good merit to measure.
This is an interesting little slice of Indian history, a little interesting slice of veteran
history.
It's great that we can connect it to people who may get motivated to go do some of their
own research on some of these issues so they understand the long, proud history that raising
and racing pigeons has.
Absolutely.
People can find the book on sharemeetheuro at homeofheroes.com.
They can listen to your guys' podcast on veteransradio.org.
I found you guys on Spotify as well, so if you just search veteransradio.
We're on all the major platforms at this point.
We've been doing this so long, so we're glad to have new listeners and always glad to have
new ideas about stories that may be of interest to veterans and their friends.
Yes, absolutely.
Well, this has been a great one.
Jim, thanks for coming on and talking with us and enlightening everybody a little bit
here.
Well, Phillip, I'm glad you reached out.
It's been fun and keep doing all the good work you're doing, spreading the word about
these all important pigeons.
Absolutely.
Thanks, Jim.
Thank you for listening to another episode of the All About Pigeons podcast.
Please help the pigeon hobby by telling your fellow club members or other pigeon friends
about the podcast.
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Do you listen?
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an email over to allaboutpigeonspodcast at gmail.com.
And thank you so much for listening.
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I am Jim Fawcone.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans, and you can reach us at
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