Quest to crack secrets of lost D-Day pigeon

It was part of a very special air service crucial to the D-Day landings. But a carrier pigeon dispatched by the invasion force to relay secret messages back across the Channel never made it home to its base. Instead the bird got stuck in a chimney only to be discovered 70 years later, it's secret communique still attached to its skeleton in a red capsule. The message is so secret that it is written in code long since forgotten by the security services. Now the Government Communications Headquarter (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, Glos, is hoping to decipher the note in a bid to unravel the mystery. The Royal Pigeon Racing Association believe the bird probably either got lost, disorientated in bad weather, or was simply exhausted after its trip across the Channel.



Its remains were discovered by David Martin when he ripped out a fireplace and found it in the chimney while renovating his home in Bletchingley, Surrey. Historians believe the bird was almost certainly dispatched from Nazi-occupied France on June 6, 1944 - During the D-Day invasions. Due to Winston Churchill's radio blackout, homing pigeons were taken on the D-Day invasion and released by Allied Forces to inform military Generals back on English soil how the operation was going. "It's a real mystery and I cannot wait for the secret message to be decoded," Mr Martin said. "It really is unbelieveable." It is thought that the bird was destined for the top secret Bletchley Park, which was just 80 miles from Mr Martin's home.



The message was sent to XO2 at 16:45 and contained 27 codes, each made up of five letters or numbers. The destination X02 was believed to be Bomber Command, while the sender's signature at the bottom of the message read Serjeant W Stot. Experts said the spelling of Serjeant was significant, because the RAF used J, while the Army used G. During the war, Codebreakers worked there round the clock in top secret - deciphering Nazi codes including Enigma. It was also home to a classified MI6 pigeon loft, manned by trainer Charles Skevington. Colin Hill, a volunteer for the Royal Pigeon Racing Association said: "The message Mr Martin found must be highly top secret. The aluminium ring found on the bird's leg tells us it was born in 1940 and we know it's an Allied Forces pigeon because of the red capsule it was carrying - but that's all we know.


YouTube link.

"We suspect it was flying back to Monty's HQ or Bletchley Park from Nazi occupied Normandy during the invasion. I can only presume it became exhausted and attempted to rest on an open chimney - where it valiantly perished. This is a very special message because most were not written in code. This is written like an enigma message so must have been very secret and very important." Pigeon enthusiasts - commonly known as "fanciers" - were calling for Mr Martin's mysterious military bird to be posthumously decorated with the Dickin Medal - the highest possible decoration for valour given to animals. The crack team of birds were a secret wing of the National Pigeon Service - which had a squadron of 250,000 birds during the Second World War. They can reach speeds of 80mph, cover distances of more than 1,000 miles and are thought to use the Earth's magnetic fields to navigate.