PIGEONS AND DOGS HELPED TO SAVE VERDUN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3334, 6 February 1918, Page 55

PIGEONS AND DOGS HELPED TO SAVE VERDUN.

The war has brought strange characters to light, -writes the New York Sun. One of the most remarkable is Achille, the canal boatman, who, with his millionaire partner Lewis (said to be air American), reinstated carrier pigeons, supposed to have been superseded by wireless telegraph, and proved their vital superiority m the furnace of battle. At a certain moment at Verdun the -wireless went down in a tempest of bombardment, and the French front, blinded and voiceless, was saved by delicate little living creatures thrown into the breach—the pigeons whose tired wings are being heliotherapeutically massaged by a grateful Government; while a military decree published and placarded over all France warns good citizens to rescue the paralysed. They were aided by war dogs, whose virtues had been recognised j but up to Verdun pigeons had been militarily neglected in favour of the boasted wireless; and it took born Naturefakers (as the French say, getting the word twisted) to rehabilitate "bright birds that eternally flew." When the great attacks on Verdun began everything was planned to catch the French napping. The German artillery, having exact plans of French railroads supplying the front, proceeded to cut them methodically, blowing up section after section in succession. Verdun was saved, as everybody knows, by French automobile trains. Verdun was saved also by the heroism of French poilus. They took the diabolical bombardment on their breasts and died in mass to the immortal song of Passeront pas! (Won't Get Through!) Verdun was saved, thirdly, by the new French heavy artillery, which France did not possess when the war came and which was planned, made, and had its munitions provided for it in war, while fighting off the invader. None will forget the heavy artillery. And Verdun was saved by birds. And dogs. When the wireless telegraph went down in the tempest and deep-laid telephones cables were blown into the air by the fury of German shell fire, the French batteries had been blinded, but for the carrier pigeons of the Bird Man. Achille arrived with his partner, Lewis, in pecu-liar-shaped, "invisible" tents painted green, brown, and grey in daubs, and a cage waggon full .of expensive fliers so attached to their travelling home that nothing could keep them from it, once free on the wing. How the great flock of Verdun pigeons was bought and who footed the bills will be a story for after the Avar. Many things that wero clone are surely military secrets for tho present. Lot U 9 suppose, however, a trained animal turn in vaudeville. The faithful dog will introduce three pigeons into Thiaumont. The flat curved wicker panniers are strapped to Medor-s sides, and off he trots through shell fire that makes the world hold its breath to find the master

he had left in Thiaumont—l6 times taken, lost, and taken!

The French hold it, in a pandemonium. If the German battery upon the left cannot be silenced Thiaumont is done for. Telephone and wireless long since ceased to exist; and the pigeon has been released; and the commandant is desperate to communicate with the rear. But what can bo expected to pass through that blasting? Far away (a quarter mile Is far) Medor crawls on'his belly through the flashes and the crashes. Now he dashes on and now he flattens up against cement heaps. He stops and whimpers, for the way is awful. He crouches, leaps, and stops again—and at last scampers into Thiaumont with the devoted pigeons in his panniers! His collar bears a message: 'We relieve you by attack on Froideterre, 3 p.m." Quick to one of the pigeons they attach a return message: " Stop the German battery on our left. Here are the elements for pointing." Now they wait for a calm in the tempest. From a corner of Thiaumont they throw the frantic bird into the air. What does she think of her adventures? She doesn't think; she's just a palpitating little mass of craving to get back to the calm home of the cage waggon. Usually the birds are simply carried in their little cages by the dozens when troops occupy advanced positions, and as long as telegraph and telephone work they are held in reserve. Only the other day during the capture of the Montparnasse quarries, beyond the Chemin des Dames, two German aviators, completely palsied and unnerved, came tranquilly down on a French colonel's post. At the same moment three German carrier pigeons fell almost beside them. The first bore a message in which a German commander told his desperate need of reinforcements to avoid capture; his battalion was stranded on the slopes beyond Allemant. The second concerned an* attack on Royere which the Germans would launch at daybreaic. And the third bird bore word that the troops told off for that attack were being wiped out, captured, driven back, and hunted down. The pigeons were paralysed. . Paralysed pigeons! Anyone could pick them up. They would lie in your hand, turn their little heads towards you, and look with their pink eyes, astonished. It is not the first time. French pigeons get paralysed; but they do not carry information to the German rear. Doubtless because they come from home and are not invaders introduced into an unknown land, their poor benumbed wings carry them invariably to the French rear in safety; and, as if their little brains were somewhat .shocked and confused, they have been found wandering with their messages as far south as Lyons. All French • residents finding carrier pigeons in distress are to care for them tenderly, and hand them over to the military. The treatment for paralysed wings is massage, electricity, and heliotherapy.