TWO WAY PIGEONS (Page 3/3)

Once you have the birds flying properly to both lofts without any problems you can start moving the avairy further away. Sometimes as you move further away in a straight line you will find that the birds will catch on quickly. Other times you may have to retrain several times from the same location. Don't forget that as you move to a new location the training period may have to start over again as I explained.

One thing that I have learned is that feed is the master over the birds. Once they know where they are fed, they will always look for that location. Handling of the birds is also a great factor. To me a bird is like a child. Once you mistreat them they seem to remember. I remember one man we had by the name of John Osowski in our pigeon platoon. He was able to whistle to the birds while they were flying and they would drop down and land on his head and shoulders looking to be fed.

The greatest thing I remember seeing happened on the island of Hawaii. We had a mobile loft that was ordered to a new location as though we were in a combat situation and had to move. As the mobile loft moved out on the highway it was a great thrill to me to see how the birds kept following the loft until, one by one, they landed on the platform and trapped in while the loft was rolling along the highway.

Back to the two way birds. There were times on Okinawa, for example, when the radios were of no use because of the mountains and the pigeons were called into service. There was an instance when the 165th Infantry, 27th Division, was bogged down and their radios were of no use. Our pigeons were used to have aerial support brought in so that they could continue their operations.

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