Winged victory: How a wonder of nature helped win the Second World War

An item from the Legion Magazine.

Legion Magazine was saddened by the tragic incident at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta. Our thoughts are with family, colleagues and friends of those who died, were wounded and experienced the event. We will remember.

Canadian pigeon carriers give the birds water in captured trenches on Hill 70 in August 1917. [DND/LAC/O-1828]

Winged victory: How a wonder of nature helped win the Second World War

STORY BY RICHARD FOOT

They served bravely in the Second World War on secret flying missions deep inside Nazi-occupied Europe.

Thousands perished. Others made it home safely to Britain amid extraordinary feats of endurance and daring.

None understood the high stakes of their wartime service. After all, they were pigeons— small, stoic birds conscripted into the war to carry out vital tasks that no human ever could.

During the raid on Dieppe on Aug. 19, 1942, a pigeon named Beach Comber was carried ashore by Canadian soldiers, then released. Dodging machine-gun fire, the bird flew back across the English Channel carrying a message attached to its leg: the first confirmation for authorities in England that Allied troops had landed in France.

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The names spill forth from Yann Castelnot’s seemingly endless list, like a rollcall of courage. Alongside those listed are their Indigenous nations—Mi’kmaq, Mohawk (Kanyen’kehà:ka) and

Jim Hutton, co-founder of Veterans with Cancer. [Veterans with Cancer]

Veterans with Cancer co-founder Jim Hutton on carcinogenic exposure in the CAF

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Retired commander Jim Hutton recalls the mess deck where he relaxed aboard HMCS Assiniboine. Then an ordinary seaman serving in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Cold War, he was well prepared for peril—but not for what loomed above his berth.

There, hanging low where he rested off duty, were “steam pipes covered with lagging. The lagging was all asbestos.”

It was an era before FaceTime, Hutton recounts, when writing letters was still in vogue. “I remember putting my pen and pencils into the lagging to hold them because it was a great place for them to be. You could also throw your webbing over that, and all you could see was dust coming down.”