A fascinating aspect in modern technology and warfare is the reliance upon pgieons and dogs--and their achievements--for war services. Evidently several hundred thousand pigeons were used to relay messages between divisional headquarters and battlefield positions and such during WWI, with something like 90% of the messages being delivered successfully--a remarkable achievement, since it was not uncommon for the pigeons to fly dozens of miles to perform their task. The services worked so well in fact that the American carrier pigeon service training facilitiy for the army was not closed until 1957.
Dogs were used as guards, ambulance litter carriers, and occasional messengers/runners.
The image below comes from The Illustrated London News for 2 October 1915:
Osman, Lt. Col. A.H.,
Pigeons in the Great War: A Complete History of the Carrier Pigeon Service during the Great War, 1914 to 1918 (London, 1928) Read more at
Suite101.
(2) Original photograph, 1918. 8x6 inches. Good condition. $125
And another--a magnificent photograph of a memorial to a carrier pigeon named Auguste, a famous flyer who evidently performed invaluable services time after time, a bird of splendid behavior whose actions no doubt saved the lives of many soldiers, and who was shot down by German troops in commission of an assignment. Auguste's comrades cosntructed this makeshift memorial in the trenches for the heroic animal.
And another photograph that told the story of teh pigeon in very plain language:
(3) Original photograph, 1918. 9x6 inches. Good condition. $100
(4) Original photograph, 1918. 9x3 inches. Good condition. $100
And yet another appreciative handler of a valuable reseource:
(5) The Illustrated London News, weekly issue fo 25 December 1915. 34 pp. Good condition. $50
Shifting species a bit, The Illustrated London News turned its attention to a full-page story on war dogs for its Christmas issue of 1915. Here a French doctor ministers to the wound of a medical helper dog--one of thousnds who saved the lives of soldiers time-and-again.
(6) Original photograph, 1918. 9x6 inches. Good condition. $200
Still another interesting and rare image comes from an earlier post to this blog regarding the census of French war dogs, below:
I wonder what the French officer sitting behind the table at the center background thought about at night, after his day was done. I wonder what it was that went through his head, his eyes fluttering, as he slipped into sleep? As the accompanying caption of this photo states, this was a census of dogs, a census of army dogs in the French army, taken at "the battle front" of Verdun, and dated 10 October 1918. Did he think of his duties expended throughout the day, and weeks and months? Counting dogs as a war effort may have been a hard thing to consume. Perhaps this officer had already seen his share of war, perhaps he had fought from 1914 and onwards, this position being relatively benign, a reward for years of impossibly difficult service in a bloody war. Or perhaps not...
