Expired Pigeon Carries Secret Code

You may remember this story, about a dead bird found in an unused fireplace chimney, wearing a tiny capsule that carried a coded message to Blechley Park in Buckinghamsire, where the UK’s intelligence headquarters was located during World War II. Carrier pigeons were used extensively for this kind of thing, most of them being quite fast and strong, and blessed with a strong sense of where “home” was. The British government employed about 250,000 of them, and in fact, formed a special RAF squadron to cull the hawks and other birds of prey that hunted them.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226203/Skeleton-hero-World-War-II-carrier-pigeon-chimney-secret-coded-message-attached-leg.html

This unfortunate bird, however, didn’t make it to Blechley Park. Poor thing stopped to rest on someone’s chimney and fell into it instead, until the current homeowner decided in 2012 to renovate the fireplace, which required cleaning out the chimney.

And there it was: a long lost message that never got delivered.

The message was sent to Blechley Park when found, and codebreakers were stumped by it.

https://theweek.com/articles/470121/curious-case-uncrackable-world-war-ii-code-found-dead-pigeon

However, a Canadian man, Gord Young from Peterborough, Ont., a member of a local historical society, who had inherited a WWI codebook said that he’d cracked the code very quickly. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20749632

Mr Young says Sgt Stott would have sent two birds – with identical messages – at the same time, to make sure the information got through.

He stated he believed that it was WWI-related code, because of the use of the abbreviation Sjt. in Stott’s rank, an archaic abbreviation for Sergeant.

“Essentially, Stott was taught by a WWI trainer; a former Artillery observer-spotter. You can deduce this from the spelling of Serjeant which dates deep in Brits military and as late as WWI,” he said.

“Seeing that spelling almost automatically tells you that the acronyms are going to be similar to those of WWI.”

Naturally, there was some skepticism evinced by Blechley Park, but until  or unless they can show otherwise, they still haven’t cracked it themselves.

The lesson here? Simple: Don’t throw out those old codebooks. They might come in handy some day.

We still use Morse code, right? Does anyone ever use Morris code any more? We need to invent some new “old” codes, too, stuff that looks archaic, and use archaic languages like Silbo gomero, a whistling language from the Canary Islands, or some of those African click languages that are fading away.  Klingon is SO-O-O last century!

Category: War Stories