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All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.

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This is Veterans Radio.

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Welcome to Veterans Radio.

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I am Jim Fausone.

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I'm the officer of the deck today.

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I think you'll find very interesting.

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you didn't know before by going to VeteransRadio.org.

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You can reach them at 800-693-4800 or on the web at LegalHelpForVeterans.com.

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You've probably never thought about the military use of pigeons to communicate, but that was

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a common practice during World War I in particular.

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So I had the chance to write on that, and then I was asked to speak on a podcast called

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All About Pigeons.

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So here's my explanation to the pigeon community about the use of those majestic birds in the

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military to communicate between the front and headquarters.

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Hello and welcome to the All About Pigeons podcast.

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We have a very special episode for you today, so stick around.

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Welcome to the All About Pigeons podcast.

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Today we have with us Jim Falzon.

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He is the lead on VeteransRadio podcast.

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He is a veterans disability lawyer and served in the late 1970s.

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He's been on air with the VeteransRadio since 2014.

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He has built LegalHelp for Veterans PLLC into one of the premier veteran disability firms

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in the country.

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Jim has also written a book on Chermi and pigeons who have served in the war, and we're

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going to talk about that today.

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So Jim, thanks for coming on and talking with us.

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Well, Philip, glad to be here.

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And with my many things I do in the veterans space, I'm a veteran myself.

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And as you mentioned, a veterans disability lawyer with LegalHelp for Veterans, that

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got us involved in VeteransRadio, which has been on the air for 21 years, and doing podcasts

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for about six of them now.

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Every week we publish something new at veteransradio.org.

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And along the way, I started writing about issues interesting that I felt were interesting

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to veterans, and many of them are found at a website called HomeOfHeroes.com, which

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has all kinds of stories on metal liner recipients, the silver star recipients.

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And other things I found interesting, and one of them was the story of Chermi.

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So as time goes on, you start to accumulate more and more information, and you say, well,

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I didn't know that.

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I got to push something out about that.

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And that's how we got here.

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Okay, yeah, it is definitely a lot of people I feel like are just completely unaware about

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the role that pigeons served in wartime.

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I mean, just completely unaware about it.

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It's really, when you say it out loud, it becomes really simple because military maneuvers

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are all about communication.

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It's about what headquarters wants you to do and what the guy in the field can actually

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get done.

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And oftentimes those aren't the same things, because the headquarters doesn't have the

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right information.

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So you need a way to communicate between the front line and back where the troops are

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headquartered, where those generals are, if you will.

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And so you have to have communication.

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And we live in an age where you and I are doing this over the internet, where everything

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is digital and technology wise, but you don't have to go very far back before there were

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cell phones, before there was internet, before there was GPS.

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And now you get yourself into, well, how did they communicate?

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How did the forces know what to do and what they were facing?

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And really, pigeons have been involved in military affairs at least as far back as 1878.

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And were involved in the US Army Signal Corps.

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I think they got out a bit about March of 1957.

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But a long history and valiant service by pigeons to allow communications at the very

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high and the most present levels.

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Absolutely.

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I had a, my uncle, JR Williams was in the Pigeon Signal Corps in World War II.

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And there was some pretty, you know, really neat articles about that and how they did

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the training and things like this.

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And really, I think like Cherome is probably the most, for the people who do know, she's

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the most well known.

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Well, first off, I guess you wrote the book on this and I hear, when I hear the story,

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I hear it said both ways.

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Do you know if Cherome was a hen or a cockbird?

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I heard primarily that it was a he.

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Okay.

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We'll just say that then.

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We'll say that Cherome passed in 1918.

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So it's a long time ago.

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Anyway, you'll look at it.

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Nobody was around who really knows the truth.

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Maybe the Smithsonian does because that's where Cherome resides.

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That's right.

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Yeah.

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So she's still there.

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She's all taxidermied up in at the Smithsonian, right?

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Absolutely.

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And she's one of a number, I think there's three other four others that were so significant

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in their military service.

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They have the same honor.

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Let's get into the meat potatoes on this.

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Can you give us a breakdown of the story of Cherome?

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Yeah.

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And you got to think back to World War One, where there were no cellular communications.

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So the Americans were over in France fighting in France.

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To communicate, you had to string half a wire between the frontline troops and headquarters.

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So it was easy to disrupt communications by cutting the wires, which both sides did to

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each other.

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Also, World War One was a trench warfare.

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So a lot of the troops dug trenches and were fighting from the low ground.

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So again, not a great way to be able to communicate.

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You couldn't use signals, you couldn't use lights.

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There were no real radio communications at that point in time.

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The general in charge of that French expeditionary course through the US was General John Pershing,

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Blackjack Persian.

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Great name for a general.

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Blackjack Persian got to France and he realized my troops are out there.

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And he was a guy who wanted to be at the front of the troops.

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But he said, I can't communicate with him.

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He actually did two things.

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One of them was both of them are very interesting.

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One of them is relevant to this conversation.

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He had 800 pigeons brought over by the signal port to France because he knew that they would

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be successful in flying their routes and communicating.

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The other thing he should do that should be mentioned in the past, at least.

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He made a call to French speaking American women, single women, who were working for

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AT&T.

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And he brought them over, I think around 500, something like 2000 volunteers, but about

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500 came over to France and worked as telephone operators on the front lines because they

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were faster and better than the army soldiers who were trying to connect calls between headquarters

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and connecting with the French troops and the folks in the trenches.

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These women were somewhat known as hello girls, have a whole interesting history themselves.

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But the pigeons really got used by Pershing to send out with the frontline troops so that

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if there was no wire communications in which in many places there weren't, you could release

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the pigeons with messages back to headquarters and Pershing's command could get the latest

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intel of where artillery was needed, where troops needed to be strengthened, that sort

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of thing.

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And what's really amazing is the claim that 90% of those missions flown by pigeons for

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Blackjack Pershing were successful.

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The message got through.

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That's a good percent.

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That's very effective.

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I don't know about you, but my cell phone doesn't work that well.

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So Cheromey, who I think was born in the fall of 1918, made his way to France.

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She flew 12 missions, came back from France, wounded.

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She had received injury to her eye, her leg, and had taken a graze in the breast from a

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little girl because both sides knew the others were using pigeons to communicate.

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And so shooting them down was very game.

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She came back to the United States, ultimately passed away in June of 1919.

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You think about it, didn't have a very long life.

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But in those 12 missions, 12 successful missions, because you don't come back unless it's a

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successful mission, really contributed to the war effort, and there's one really the

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last famous battle that she was instrumental in that, if you'd like it, I'd be willing

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to talk about.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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That's kind of like her glory story right there.

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It really is.

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There was a Lost Battalion.

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And again, if any of your listeners are interested, they can Google Lost Battalion World War I

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and all kinds of stories will pop up.

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And what had happened is in this trench warfare, some American troops dug in at the side of

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a hill, were really surrounded by the Germans and couldn't find a way out.

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The headquarters wasn't exactly sure where they were at.

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It was told in artillery fire onto where they thought they were at this hill.

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And the only problem is it was inaccurate.

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Without good information, the artillerymen can't do their jobs right.

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Ultimately the major who was involved, Major Witzley, used his last pigeon, Cherome, wrote

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a quick and simple note attached it to her leg and center off.

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The note was, this is really interesting because it's so abbreviated, right?

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So the note was simply, we are along the road parallel to 276.4.

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Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us.

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For heaven's sake, stop it.

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That was the note.

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And made its war back to artillery.

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They adjusted their sights and ultimately pounded the Germans enough to free up the

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Lost Battalion.

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But all of that could have happened without this, if you will, scrawny little bird.

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Communicating back to headquarters, what was so critical, so important, which was, coordinates,

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where are you?

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We're trying to help.

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They certainly didn't want friendly fire to occur.

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So it became really a life-saving mission that Cherome had.

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And ultimately the Lost Battalion was no longer lost.

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As a result, Cherome received the French Croix de Bure, one of its highest awards in military

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terms.

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It also received medals for bravery.

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It was the British, I believe, gave it a dick in metal, which is for gallantry under

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fire.

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So there was a real recognition of the immense value played by this little bird in its efforts

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to let the artillery folks know where the Lost Battalion was.

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And how many soldiers were in that battalion?

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Do you remember?

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I think the number was, it was a decent amount of men, too.

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It was.

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I think they were less, they may have started at 500, they were under 200 at the time that

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the bird, they were getting wiped out, and they would have been wiped out.

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That's not the only pigeon that there's a real history for during World War I.

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Some of the names are somewhat famous.

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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,

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who lost the eye and is noted in the literature.

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Another one called President Wilson, who lost the foot.

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The I. Joe, famous one that helped troops in Italy and saved a town where the United

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States Air Force Army Air at the time was going to bomb this Italian town because it

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thought the Germans still had control and it was a pigeon that blew back the information

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that the Germans had left.

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Thereby saving the town, saving the civilians from this, what would have been a horrific

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bombing raid.

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I'll give you an example of how it was used both ways.

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There's a famous World War I German pigeon, which we in the United States call Kaiser.

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At the end of the war, Kaiser and nine of his mates were captured, brought back to the

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United States and actually toured the United States as a pigeon peel-doughnuts as a way

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to raise sure bomb money for United States Army.

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Kaiser had a pretty good life, pretty good peel-doughnut life.

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He lasted 31 years, died in 1949.

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During that time, he started 75 pigeons that the Army signal court would produce primarily

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World War II.

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That's incredible, 31 years.

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As I said, I think the signal court took pretty good care of him and he turned out to be probably

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the longest POW pigeon ever held.

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So I thought that was pretty interesting.

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And I said earlier that Sharon Mead is in the Smithsonian, but so is Kaiser.

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A couple of other pigeons by the name of Global Girl and Anzio Boy who played different roles

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in World War II.

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Anzio Boy, as you might imagine, with missions in Italy.

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So there's a long history of this and you don't have to go too far back to see the importance

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of pigeons in communications in war time efforts.

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I got younger kids, so we've got some of the, I think the G.I. Joe is one of the kids' books

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we have and there's a kids' book on Sharon Mead.

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And there's also a lot of YouTube animations, so anybody with kids or teachers out there

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for other kids, there's some pretty good places where you can watch these stories also.

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One of the things that is so interesting and you're keeping it alive with all about pigeons

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broadcast is this whole idea of how intelligent holding pigeons are, how capable they are.

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Now us over on the veterans' radio side, we think it's an interesting story, but we don't

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know, we don't appreciate maybe the level at which the training went on, the breeding

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went on, because the Army sold off its last pigeons in March of 1957.

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So it's a long time since the Army would have utilized the home pigeons.

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And that to me, I mean, I'd like to hear your thoughts because we've heard about the Army

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in China that they've actually been going the other way.

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They bought like 4,000 breeders a couple years ago, which means they probably get 8,000 pigeons

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today.

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You know, they're still doing it.

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I think France still has a pigeon core.

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I mean, what are your thoughts about that, Jim?

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I mean, what do you think about us getting rid of that?

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It's interesting you raise this because as I was getting prepped for the show, Philip,

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and thinking about this more, it turned from a curiosity to a national security issue.

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If you think about, and I didn't know what China was doing, that even makes me more concerned.

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But if you think about, and we certainly had programs on EMPs, weapons, if you think about

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cyber attacks, you knock down our satellites, you knock out our GPS, you knock down our

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communications, we're going to be right back to where we need the pigeons.

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We are so dependent on the electronics today, you cut our underwater cables or internet

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and we're blacked off from countries on the west and on the east coast.

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So yeah, I wouldn't think it's worth at least thinking about, should there be some specialty

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in understanding how this can be a tool for the military, which has a long history of

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using animals successfully in warfare, whether it's horses or dogs, the dogs in Afghanistan,

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in Iraq, or well known, dolphins.

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Maybe it would be prudent to think about coming back around to this, and particularly if China

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is doing it, there might be a reason why China is doing it, cutting communications to Taiwan,

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for example, but it also takes a community like yours that are breeders and racers of

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pigeons to step up and say, hey, I can help.

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The world where the US military is all about, it's a volunteer corps, very few of us know

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somebody or are involved with somebody who's actually participating in keeping the peace

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around the world.

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And I'm sure if that time came, the pigeon community would come forward.

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Yeah, I wish that we still had something, one loft, just give us one loft out there

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and just to play with it.

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There is still, I think it was in, oh, probably going to get the country wrong, in India or

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something that was actually still doing a optional delivery service using pigeons.

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And there's some company here in the States that will deliver letters.

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It's kind of like a short distance sort of a thing, just kind of a novelty thing.

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But I still think, they've been a part of human existence for thousands of years.

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They're not just going to get irrelevant because we have smartphones now.

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And to put all of our trust and faith into that, I think that would be really helpful.

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And I don't know how true this is, but have you ever come across anything where the, because

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like you said, both countries, everybody uses pigeons during the war.

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Were there any countries that were using falconry at all to take down the pigeons?

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I mean, sort of just shooting at them?

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And not aware of the falconry use.

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The British had a lot of pigeons involved in the war effort and World War II in particular.

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You can imagine the ability to fly back across the channel and something like 32 British

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pigeons received the dick and metal for gallantry under fire.

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So that gives you some sense of the level of effort that was being used by the British.

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But I'm not aware of falconry.

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I'm aware of, as I say, it was fair game to shoot out.

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And actually in World War II, there was a army technical metal, which I'm looking at

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as thought it was kind of comical, but serious on how to release pigeons from aircraft.

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Oh, that was sort of interesting.

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I do know that they were often strapped in cage to paratroopers who would jump out of

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their airplanes and then when they got them down on the ground, that's how they would

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get them there.

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But they were also apparently released from the aircraft, which I find sort of interesting.

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But they also didn't fly at the same speeds and they weren't jets sucking in everything

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either.

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At one time, this was a real serious endeavor by the US Army single corps.

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I heard a story too about it was a ship that was going down and it was when the pigeon

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came back, they did the triangulation based on how fast the pigeon can fly when it got

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there and they were able to find the boat.

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Whereas otherwise, the ocean is so fast that it just would have been hard to even find

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the sailors out there.

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It doesn't surprise me.

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I mean, again, those are the kind of stories and those are the sorts of creative efforts

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that the Army and the Navy were used with trying to have communications and recognizing

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that pigeons are our best way to communicate in the world at that time.

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During the Allied effort, is it true that a lot of, like you're saying, that there was

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horses and dogs and pigeons.

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So when the war was over, did those animals get left behind?

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Obviously, Cherokee came back probably because of the status of her and everything else.

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But did the other ones just get left back there?

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Many were left behind.

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It's one of the real efforts that they're trying to make out of Afghanistan is to bring

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the search and rescue dogs back somewhat successfully.

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History will tell us over time how successfully, when you watch history unfold, you don't really

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get the full truth.

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You get the sanitized version.

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But we've had a number of stories on veteransradio.org where dog handlers have told their stories

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about how difficult it was to get them to clear their dog back to the United States.

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A dog named Fred that was not a qualified service dog was smuggled back into the United

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States with some hoodwicking of BHL carriers to get it out of Afghanistan, Germany and

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ultimately to the United States.

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It's a great dog story, but it just shows you the love and the commitment and connection

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soldiers have to these animals such as these pigeons who have helped them, who have shared

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risks with them, who have been injured like they may have been injured.

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I told you earlier about lost eyes and legs and shot in the breast and all of that.

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Those are all things with men in combat would really relate to and have strong attachments

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to as a result.

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The reason they were getting left was it was a quarantine situation, right?

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They just didn't want to bring back a bunch of animals in case one of them had something.

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Absolutely.

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It's a concern for the safety of other animals and people back in the United States, all

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with good merit to measure.

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This is an interesting little slice of Indian history, a little interesting slice of veteran

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history.

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It's great that we can connect it to people who may get motivated to go do some of their

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own research on some of these issues so they understand the long, proud history that raising

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and racing pigeons has.

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Absolutely.

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People can find the book on sharemeetheuro at homeofheroes.com.

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They can listen to your guys' podcast on veteransradio.org.

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I found you guys on Spotify as well, so if you just search veteransradio.

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We're on all the major platforms at this point.

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We've been doing this so long, so we're glad to have new listeners and always glad to have

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new ideas about stories that may be of interest to veterans and their friends.

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Yes, absolutely.

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Well, this has been a great one.

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Jim, thanks for coming on and talking with us and enlightening everybody a little bit

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here.

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Well, Phillip, I'm glad you reached out.

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It's been fun and keep doing all the good work you're doing, spreading the word about

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these all important pigeons.

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Absolutely.

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Thanks, Jim.

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Thank you for listening to another episode of the All About Pigeons podcast.

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Please help the pigeon hobby by telling your fellow club members or other pigeon friends

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about the podcast.

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00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:46,920
And make sure to take some time and leave a good review for the podcast review.

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00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:48,400
Do you listen?

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00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:52,440
If you have a topic or a person you want to hear more about on the podcast, just send

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an email over to allaboutpigeonspodcast at gmail.com.

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And thank you so much for listening.

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And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.

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I am Jim Fawcone.

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It's been a pleasure to be your host.

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I'm a Veterans Disability lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans, and you can reach us at

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800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.

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You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio

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shows by visiting us at veteransradio.org.

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That's veteransradio.org.

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And until next time, you are dismissed.

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If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for

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00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:42,320
Veterans at 1-800-6934800.

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00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:46,320
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

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Your number again, 1-800-6934800.

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00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:55,880
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And until next time, you are dismissed.