Landships II

Could the wheels be covered with canvas to stop the pidgeons landing on the spokes? Messy things pidgeons.

Chris

If you have a good google you'll find lots of stuff on the subject. There were amazing numbers in use - can't remember exactly, but several hundred. Horse-drawn models at first but vans, lorries, and, of course, buses were converted as the War went on. The French also converted buses but, oddly, I've never found any material on German use of pigeons. One assumes they used them.

Somewhere on the Forum are articles on converting the B-Type bus and a French toy bus (that was given away with breakfast cereal or somesuch) into pigeon lofts. A propos of which, one of the articles mentions that the author had to guess what the roof might have looked like. I've found a pic that shows one; the roof of the B-Type was probably similar. See below.

-- Edited by James H on Thursday 18th of February 2010 08:05:43 PM

The pigeon service in WW1 is described in a book by Col Osman, "Pigeons in the Great War." published by the racing pigeon Publishing Company.
The pigeon service was started by a man called Major Alec Whaley. He ttranferred from the Intelligence Corps to the new Royal Engineers Signals and became Staff Officer (Pigeons). He trained many of the pigeon handlers himself. The pigeons were obtained from English pigeon fanciers. (The only way to get rationed pigeon feed was to provide birds for the services.)
There were static and mobile lofts.
The first mobile lofts were built on horsedrawn wagons Mark VII. There is a plan at the Royal Corps of Signals Museum at Blandford of which I have a copy.
Only six motor mobile lofts were built (Motor Mobile Lofts 1 to 6) on bus bodies. Most of these seem to be B-types but one photo is possibly a Daimler bus.

Hi all,

I simply didn't realise that pigeons were such a big item. Like many second line troops, like catering, transportation, offices, they not always have that spectacular look of the front line.
Much surprised that there is so much information and even books about it! Many thanks for letting it know!

regards, Kieffer

baldwin wrote:

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I must be honest with the havoc the little buggers made with my vegetable garden I am definitly not a great fan of these feathered vandals!!!!

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 So the pigeon figure set won't be out anytime soon then

baldwin wrote:

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This is getting facinating the one thing that has struck is the colour schemes of the wagons,unlike the usual "drab" colours of army transport these are not at all.I would say they are extremly "eye catching".So does this mean they were a fair distance from the Front Lines (if not ideal for target practice!!) or is it a case that the pidgeons can spot them???

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I should think the mobile lofts accompanied the headquarters units in their peregrinations.  There is one depicted so in Australian service in Le Hamel - Tanks, pigeons and bullets 'by air'. 

I have no idea what the colours accomplished but I think there is little doubt they were intended for the benefit of the birds.  Mobile lofts are virtually an oxymoron, considering their usually static nature, perhaps it was considered the 'rats with wings' needed a little help with such an 'unnatural' arrangement.  We need a pigeon fancier's input (did I say 'rats'? no, no I didn't mean that) - or some source documentation.

Certainly pigeons are capable of both colour and shape discrimination - Pigeons As Art Critics? Pigeons, Like Humans, Use Color And Pattern Cues To Evaluate Paintings - so their response to shape and colour would be fairly predictable, leaving aside any special abilities with infrared, ultraviolet and polarisation they might have. 

And reward.  Reward is an important part of pigeon performance.  Nothing like a nice bit of broccoli to make up for being buffeted, gassed, shot at, pursued by enemy raptors and inappropriately identified as comestibles by peckish people.  All of this a generation before the institution of the Dickin Medal!

 

sorry

-- Edited by ergie on Thursday 4th of March 2010 09:00:50 PM

Hi Lincoln Tanker,

looks like the pigeon in the missile cone hadn't much of a chance to survive it's mission.
Bit like the German shepherd dogs with an anti tank mine on their backs, WW2, trained to crawl under a (Soviet far as I know) tank.

Brussel isn't the only place with a pigeon monument. Charlreroi has one, and at Fort Vaux is a small monument, with the text of commander Raynal on it, which he sent with his last pigeon before the fortress fall. The pigeon made it but the message wasn't answered.
There is a nice site: pierreswesternfront.punt.nl, with pictures of the latter.

regards, Kieffer

Haha! Love the pigeon on his hat. Very unusual looking radiator, my money's on French

Hi all,

An image from Ebay:

Regards Sturm78

What on earth? Well, I suppose an enemy aviator passing by and short of ammunition might convince himself it was a mirage and leave it alone? But I suppose the main thing was that a loft indicated a headquarters nearby so unless it was a long way behind the lines it would indeed be a good idea to disguise it? I just don't know. It doesn't look very much camouflaged to me.

Hi all,

from the same source: transportation of pigeons by motorcycles and pigeons in hospital.
The caption(oval picture) says that these brave birds delivered their mail though they were wounded, and lost a leg. (It's not a "Bernard and Andre the Brave MG dogs story...)
I am not a motor cycle expert, so I can't tell which bikes these were.

regards Kieffer

The motorcycles are Triumph model H's, superb machines, along with the Douglas 2 3/4hp's they were the main despatch rider motorcycles.

I'm currently reading a book on the Battle of Arras and it mentions that German pigeons often ended up in British lofts - easily distinguishable as they were dyed red!

Found this recently

Talking of spy pigeons, frame below from Wallace and Grommet's World of Invention, represented as an actual German photograph from WW1. Although there apparently was a German patent for a pigeon-borne camera the general consensus seems to be the photo shows mock-ups and the pic was for propaganda/spreading of fear uncertainty and doubt. Which is still interesting. Wallace and Grommet? I have to get out more.

The idea of a photographing pigeon seems to be a bit older, this one is from 1909.
The para-pigeon picture, no I do think this is a ww1. Well, at least the book says...
The 'smoke the cigarettes and eat the bird' thing, I think that's coming from something else, apparantly French counter espionage, or even from general De Gaulle himself.. gave that advise to French citizens finding any German pigeons in 1944. The Germans were using pigeons with misleading information, and to prove they were 'genuine' a box of real English cigarettes was attached. But I do not know if that's true, or just another myth.



-- Edited by kieffer on Thursday 24th of February 2011 08:10:03 AM

tests are mentioned in the 1909 text, even successfully. May be the Wallace and Grommet camera was too heavy, the weight should have been no more than 75 gr...
Herr Neubronner was a pharmacist, using pigeons to carry recipes and medicine. One of his pigeons stayed away rather long, Dr Neubronner got curious and wanted to know the whereabouts...

Detachment  of Messenger  Dogs.
(Meldehundetruppe  ).
(From French  Military Advisory Mission Bulletin).
This  detachment  is  commanded  by a  lieutenant,  who  has  charge
of the  pigeon  service  at  the  same  time.
The  total  personnel  is  about  70.
This  detachment  at  the  present  time  has  26  messenger  dogs.

Two men  are  thus  assigned  to  each  dog  the  man  who  sends  a
message  and  the  man  receiving  it.  Except  in  the  case  of  absolute
necessity  these  men  always  work with  the  same  dog.
These  dogs  have  charge  of  the  liaisons  between  the  command
posts  of  company  commanders,  battalion  command  posts  in line
or as  support  (K. T. K.or B. T. X.) and  regimental  command  posts.
They  maintain  liaison  for  3  and  4  kilometer  distances.
Men  and  dogs  remain  about  10  days  in the  sector  and  have  20
days'  rest  the  latter  usually  spent  in training.

Detachment  of Carrier Pigeons.
(Brieftaubenabteilung)  .
This  section  is  commanded  by  the  same  officer  who  commands the  messenger  dog  detachment.
The  personnel  includes  1 feldwebel  ;5 pigeon  attendants  (Tauben
pfleger)  to  take  care  of  the  pigeons;  5  porters  (sometimes  more)
(Taubentraeger)  who  carry  baskets  of pigeons  to  the  various  command  posts,  either  in wagons  or  on  their  backs.
These  pigeons  maintain  liaisons  between  battalion  and  division command  posts.  Each  battalion  command  post  has,  almost  regularly, at  least  4  pigeons.  Company  command  posts  are  rarely  provided  with pigeons.
A movable  loft is  kept  near  the  divisional  command  post.  This is  a wagon  with  one  story  slightly raised,  harnessed  to  two horses.
It can  shelter  about  150  pigeons,  which  is  the  normal  allotment per  division.
The  use  of night  flying pigeons  seems  to have  been  very  satisfactory  so  far.

from :

http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p4013coll9&CISOPTR=138&CISOBOX=1&REC=7


Cheers

And talking of Dr. Neubronner, I don't know if he was a member of the Guild of Photochemigraphists of Germany (he jolly-well deserved to be, surely?) but here are the Arms of that august body, recorded by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law, in his seminal work, THE BOOK OF PUBLIC ARMS (1915):

Just one of those whimsical little touches ...

Belongs in the Reference section perhaps but the book can be viewed on line or downloaded (45 Mb PDF) - http://www.archive.org/details/bookofpublicarms00foxd for any needing royal, municipal etc. crests and arms of the period.