Coo, honour at last for pigeon war heroes

I didn't know that "return messages from resistance fighters" were 
"decoded at Bletchley Park" - is that true, or is that just a 'journalese'
( decoding = BP ) ?

Martin


January 6, 2008

Coo, honour at last for pigeon war heroes
-----------------------------------------

Claire Newell

SOME of Britain's most unlikely war heroes will finally be honoured this 
week when a collection of oil paintings of pigeons is sold at auction.

Jack Lovell, a pigeon breeder, assembled a crack squad of birds which were 
used by the British secret service to carry messages to and from enemy 
lines during the second world war.

He was so attached to them that he collected a series of portraits by 
French and British artists to celebrate their wartime role, which will be 
sold at Bonhams on January 15.

Lovell was approached by MI5 in 1939 to supply his best birds for active 
duty. They were based at four secret lofts in Dover, called the "XX" 
lofts, where they were trained to form a unit known as MI14.

From there the birds were parachuted behind enemy lines from bombers to 
return messages from resistance fighters for decoding at Bletchley Park.

Some even acted as "double agents", wearing leg tags found on captured 
German birds, infiltrating Nazi lofts and then, when used by the Germans, 
carrying the intercepted messages back to British lofts..../snip/


http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article3137678.ece






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