Pigeons on RAF bombers
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Pigeons on RAF bombers
Was watching a walk through of the Halifax and the guide remarked about the pigeon coop carried aboard for release of a carrier pigeon in the event of survival upon going down. Then found a snippet from a book by an RAAF Lanc pilot from later 1943 talking about releasing their pigeon with a note before abandoning AC. Just curious if this carried through the war? Though there appear to be some examples of the pigeons finding home (one at least leading to rescue of a Beaufort crew in the North Sea), I wonder what the stats were of them ever getting back.
The story about pigeons in WWII bombers was a classic piece of disinformation, just like the one about carrots improving night vision. Both stories camouflaged much more interesting and secret stories. The carrot one is now well known to have been a deception to mask the use of radar in night fighters and its success in finding targets to shoot down.
The pigeon story is less well-known. My uncle Robert, later to become well-known for writing off a prototype Windsor, told me the tale in the home where his life ended, just before that sad event. Early in 1943 there was great concern that bombers were returning after a night raid, getting lost and landing on a strange airfield if they were lucky, or crashing if not. Some bright spark thought that if pigeons could be trained to fly in front of the bomber, attached with a length of string, their natural homing instinct would mean that they flew in the direction of home, and all the pilot had to do was follow.
This worked quite well, apart from the fatal flaw that the little fellows were getting exhausted very quickly by the effort needed to keep ahead of the bomber. The boffins at Farnborough worked on this, and came up with the idea that if the pigeon was kept on the coaming behind the windshield, it could be trained to indicate the heading for home by positioning itself appropriately, left, right or centre. This proved to be a solution, and uncle Robert flew a few missions to Germany to test the system on the return journey. The tiny heroes passed the test with flying colours, and a top secret programme was launched to acquire and train several squadrons of pigeons for this work. Unfortunately, it was realised, after months of trying unsuccessfully to locate and train the avian recruits, that nearly every pigeon in Great Britain had either been acquired by SOE for communications, as well as the Army, or eaten by the population at large, by that time very hungry due to rationing, and the programme came to nothing.
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The pigeon story is less well-known. My uncle Robert, later to become well-known for writing off a prototype Windsor, told me the tale in the home where his life ended, just before that sad event. Early in 1943 there was great concern that bombers were returning after a night raid, getting lost and landing on a strange airfield if they were lucky, or crashing if not. Some bright spark thought that if pigeons could be trained to fly in front of the bomber, attached with a length of string, their natural homing instinct would mean that they flew in the direction of home, and all the pilot had to do was follow.
This worked quite well, apart from the fatal flaw that the little fellows were getting exhausted very quickly by the effort needed to keep ahead of the bomber. The boffins at Farnborough worked on this, and came up with the idea that if the pigeon was kept on the coaming behind the windshield, it could be trained to indicate the heading for home by positioning itself appropriately, left, right or centre. This proved to be a solution, and uncle Robert flew a few missions to Germany to test the system on the return journey. The tiny heroes passed the test with flying colours, and a top secret programme was launched to acquire and train several squadrons of pigeons for this work. Unfortunately, it was realised, after months of trying unsuccessfully to locate and train the avian recruits, that nearly every pigeon in Great Britain had either been acquired by SOE for communications, as well as the Army, or eaten by the population at large, by that time very hungry due to rationing, and the programme came to nothing.
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The PDSA has a list of pigeons that were given special mention for their wartime work, some with Bomber Command. Aside of ditching, I wouldn't have thought there was anyway a pigeon could have returned to their loft and many perished with the aircraft. Not many aircraft forced landed in occupied Europe. Although I believe a Wellington and a Stirling were reflown by the Germans. Pigeons were all but redundant I believe by early 44.
But not bright enough to forecast the outcome of a pigeon flying at around 50 kts with a Lancaster up its *rse at 175 kts.
Is this a wind-up ?
But not bright enough to forecast the outcome of a pigeon flying at around 50 kts with a Lancaster up its *rse at 175 kts.
Uncle Robert had tears in his eyes when he talked about the early trials with the string; as the little creature's speed dropped they would reel it back in via the DV panel until they could catch the tiny body and carefully place it on a blanket, its little chest heaving as it slowly recovered, often assisted by the Navigator's oxygen.
Last edited by old,not bold; 18th Jun 2018 at 23:48.
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24 June, 1943; D-Donald of 460 Squadron, undercart down, bomb bay open, both inboards dead and an outboard failing, incendiaries on fire on board. Pigeon deployed with note over Belgium before all crew bailed. From the book "Flak and Barbed Wire" by Gordon Stooke. Anyone read it?
24 June, 1943; D-Donald of 460 Squadron, undercart down, bomb bay open, both inboards dead and an outboard failing, incendiaries on fire on board. Pigeon deployed with note over Belgium before all crew bailed. From the book "Flak and Barbed Wire" by Gordon Stooke. Anyone read it?
Flak & Flames at 20 000 Feet - Survival by Parachute
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This has triggered a memory of one of my books, lost in the house destruction - a history of No 1 A.S.S. RAF Swanton Morley. by 'Rad' Radford. Amongst the oddments he covered was a wartime set of instructions for the correct method of wrapping pigeons in their constraining sheets for carriage into action.
Guided Missiles - Pigeon Style
B. F. Skinner, the father of Behavioral Psychology and inventor of the Skinner Box, attempted the following: (from Wikipedia)During World War II, the US Navy required a weapon effective against surface ships, such as the German Bismarck class battleships. Although missile and TV technology existed, the size of the primitive guidance systems available rendered automatic guidance impractical. To solve this problem, Skinner initiated Project Pigeon,[52] which was intended to provide a simple and effective guidance system. This system divided the nose cone of a missile into three compartments, with a pigeon placed in each. Lenses projected an image of distant objects onto a screen in front of each bird. Thus, when the missile was launched from an aircraft within sight of an enemy ship, an image of the ship would appear on the screen. The screen was hinged, such that pecks at the image of the ship would guide the missile toward the ship.[54]Despite an effective demonstration, the project was abandoned, and eventually more conventional solutions, such as those based on radar, became available. Skinner complained that "our problem was no one would take us seriously."[55] It seemed that few people would trust pigeons to guide a missile, no matter how reliable the system appeared to be.[56]
I was always curious about the birds' ability to take the crushing G-forces involved at launch. For that matter, what if the guidance pigeon recognized his launch ship as home and let his instincts take over from there? Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie?
When I was working toward my Baccalaureate in Psychology back in the late 1960's, my favorite cartoon depicted two laboratory rats resident in a Skinner Box. One rodent turns to the other and says:"Boy have we got this experimenter trained. Every time we push this bar, he gives us a hunk of cheese!" Semper in Excremento Sum - Solum Profundum Variat...
- Ed
I was always curious about the birds' ability to take the crushing G-forces involved at launch. For that matter, what if the guidance pigeon recognized his launch ship as home and let his instincts take over from there? Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie?
When I was working toward my Baccalaureate in Psychology back in the late 1960's, my favorite cartoon depicted two laboratory rats resident in a Skinner Box. One rodent turns to the other and says:"Boy have we got this experimenter trained. Every time we push this bar, he gives us a hunk of cheese!" Semper in Excremento Sum - Solum Profundum Variat...- Ed
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B. F. Skinner, the father of Behavioral Psychology and inventor of the Skinner Box, attempted the following: (from Wikipedia)
Main article: Project Pigeon
During World War II, the US Navy required a weapon effective against surface ships, such as the German Bismarck class battleships. Although missile and TV technology existed, the size of the primitive guidance systems available rendered automatic guidance impractical. To solve this problem, Skinner initiated Project Pigeon,[52] which was intended to provide a simple and effective guidance system.As for the blue-on-blue problem, they should have learned from the Soviet Anti-Tank dog project. Mistrust between allies could have caused further unnecessary disasters.
