We all know about how our brave RAF saw off the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.
But as well as Spitfires against Messerschmitts, another struggle was going on in the skies around our coast during the Second World War, it was revealed yesterday.
British carrier pigeons ferrying messages back from Nazi-occupied Europe were falling foul of the Nazis’ specially trained killer hawks.
Ursula, a trained peregrine falcon, swoops on a pigeon in June 1945 (left) and Captain Caiger of the British Army Pigeon Service holds a carrier pigeon equipped with a ‘back carrier’ message capsule (right)
Our birds’ work was so vital that a special MI5 unit was set up to shoot dead anything that attacked them.
The Falcon Destruction Unit – the only MI5 squad in history with a licence to kill – was the ‘007s of the bird world’. The existence of the unit is revealed in Secret Pigeon Service by Gordon Corera.
It tells how, under Operation Columba, thousands of homing pigeons were dropped behind enemy lines. But as they flew back to Britain with vital intelligence, many fell victim to the twin threat of Nazi hawks and native peregrine falcons.
Speaking at the Hay Festival, Corera – the BBC’s security correspondent – told how in 1940 this prompted MI5 to create the Falcon Destruction Unit, five crack shots with licence to roam the British coast shooting dead any predatory birds.
‘Pigeons faced many enemies. One of them was that Germans became aware the pigeons were dropped and started punishing people with the death penalty if they didn’t hand them in,’ he said. ‘But the pigeon also had its own enemy – the hawk, the falcon. The Germans actually weaponised hawks and placed them on the coast to hunt those British pigeons and kill them.
‘In the slightly strange world of pigeon intelligence there were also wild hawks and peregrine falcons on the British coast that would kill some of these pigeons coming back from occupied Europe with messages.’
Our carrier pigeons’ work was so vital that a special MI5 unit was set up to shoot dead anything that attacked them
MI5 was initially unsure how to respond, but soon decided to create a special kill squad.
‘This is the only MI5 team with a licence to kill… they might have a secret team now with a licence to kill but they claim not,’ Corera said.
MI5 then began to suspect the Germans were also employing pigeons, so established its own counter-pigeon unit.
But the hawks and falcons trained to attack any German pigeons were a dismal failure, killing just seven birds – all of them British.
Between April 1941 and September 1944, more than 16,000 British pigeons were dropped in occupied Europe in fortified cages, with pleas for any information to be put in a tiny capsule on the bird’s leg.
Only one in ten returned alive, but some provided crucial information.
A message from a Belgian priest in 1941 was the basis of an intelligence report on troop positions, bombing raids and a chateau being used by Nazi high command – and proved to Winston Churchill that Europe was ready to fight the Nazis.