Skeleton of World War II carrier pigeon found in chimney with a secret message

[Drache]

Skeleton of hero World War II carrier pigeon found in chimney with a secret message still attached to its leg

He had survived the perilous flight back from Nazi-occupied territory hundreds of miles away.

Exhausted, the British 'spy' pigeon swooped down on a chimney in Surrey for a rest.

And there, sadly, he fell off his perch. Perhaps overcome by fumes from the fire below, he died – with a vital coded message in a tiny capsule still strapped to his leg.

His remains lay undiscovered in the chimney for around 70 years until the home's current owner David Martin recently decided to restore the fireplace.

'The chimney was full of twigs and rubbish,' he said yesterday. 'We were stunned by how much came out. Then I started finding bits of a dead pigeon. We thought it might be a racing pigeon until we spotted the red capsule.'

The former probation officer and his wife Anne, both 74, unscrewed the capsule and found a hand-written message inside on a 'cigarette paper thin' piece of paper.

It has been sent to code breakers at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, the intelligence centre where work to crack the Nazi Enigma code shortened the war by years, and to their modern-day counterparts at GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, who also are trying to decipher it.

Mr Martin said: 'It will be amazing if we discover  an unknown detail from such an important part of British history.'

Some 250,000 pigeons were deployed in the Second World War. Able to fly at a mile a minute, they carried messages from behind enemy lines and, like a forerunner of the 'black box', accompanied RAF bomber crews in case they crashed.

Experts say the red capsule Mr Martin found is the type used by the Special Operations Executive. Their human agents undertook sabotage missions such as blowing up trains, bridges and factories in German-occupied territory.

The message was written by a Sergeant W Stott and contains  columns of groups of five letters.  It is thought that its intended recipient, 'X02', is code for Bomber Command.

One theory is that the message may have been requesting a bombing raid somewhere. Another is that the pigeon was bound for Field Marshal Montgomery's HQ in Reigate, Surrey, from where he planned the D-Day landings.

Homing pigeons were taken on the D-Day invasion and released  by Allied Forces to keep generals back on English shores updated on the operation.

Some pigeons were based at Bletchley Park, which is now a museum. But Colin Hill, curator of its permanent 'Pigeons at War' exhibition, said all of the pigeon  messages in its archives are in long-hand, not code.

'The message Mr Martin found must be highly top secret,' Mr Hill said. 'The aluminium ring found on the bird's leg tells us it was born  in 1940, and we know it's an Allied Forces pigeon because of the red capsule it was carrying, but that's all we know.'


David Martin with the remains of a carrier pigeon which he discovered behind his fireplace




Historians believe the message, which was written by a Sergeant W. Stott, will provide unique insight into the war. It was discovered rolled up in the red capsule attached to the pigeon


The message contains 27 codes, each made up of combinations of five numbers and letters


The bird could have been on its way to wartime decoding HQ Bletchley Park, in Buckinghamshire (pictured). Code-crackers are now frantically trying to decipher the message, which never reached its intended recipient


Experts believe the pigeon and coded message may have been flying back from Nazi Germany to General Montgomery Headquarters in Reigate, Surrey. General Montgomery is pictured in 1944

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226203/Skeleton-hero-World-War-II-carrier-pigeon-chimney-secret-coded-message-attached-leg.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[Old Moparz]

Looks like someone decoded an old fender tag. Isn't 'X02' head rest trim or something?

[bobs66440]

That's really interesting! I would find it hard to imagine that they left such an important delivery task to just one pigeon. I wonder if they sent more than one in case of things like this...

[BB1]

Just like Sprint, always dropping calls. 

[UFO]

That's really interesting! I would find it hard to imagine that they left such an important delivery task to just one pigeon. I wonder if they sent more than one in case of things like this...

At the bottom of the note it says two were sent.

[Todd Wilson]

Thats really cool!   


I think I see my old windows 95 key listed on the message!


Todd

[nvrbdn]

how cool. needs to be in a museum. unless they still want to bomb the site first.

[Fred]

Amazing story. It seems, things are never as lost as we think. They always turn up in the end.

[Patronus]

Monty looks to have gotten a bit too close to the pigeons in that pic.

[PocketThunder]

How do people train pigeons to go to the exact location they want them to?

Well i'll be damned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homing_pigeon

[JB400]

they always fly home

[Drache]

Canadian may have cracked WWII carrier pigeon code



The message has foiled the experts, who have appealed to the public for help.

WWII pigeon message stumps GCHQ

An encrypted World War II message found in a fire place strapped to the remains of a dead carrier pigeon may have been cracked by a Canadian enthusiast.

Gord Young, from Peterborough, in Ontario, says it took him 17 minutes to decypher the message after realising a code book he inherited was the key.

Mr Young says the 1944 note uses a simple World War I code to detail German troop positions in Normandy.

GCHQ says it would be interested to see his findings.

Blocks of code The message was discovered by 74-year-old David Martin when he was renovating the chimney of his house in Bletchingley, Surrey.

Among the rubbish, he found parts of a dead pigeon - including a leg, attached to which was a red canister. Inside the canister was a thin piece of paper with the words "Pigeon Service" at the top and 27 handwritten blocks of code.

The message - which attracted world-wide media attention - was put in the hands of Britain's top codebreakers at GCHQ at the beginning of November, but they have been unable to unlock the puzzle.

IS THIS WHAT IT MEANS?                  

• AOAKN - Artillery Observer At "K" Sector, Normandy
  
• HVPKD - Have Panzers Know Directions
  
• FNFJW - Final Note [confirming] Found Jerry's Whereabouts
  
• DJHFP - Determined Jerry's Headquarters Front Posts
  
• CMPNW - Counter Measures [against] Panzers Not Working
  
• PABLIZ - Panzer Attack - Blitz
  
• KLDTS - Know [where] Local Dispatch Station
  
• 27 / 1526 / 6  - June 27th, 1526 hours
  

They remain convinced the message is impossible to decrypt, although a spokesman said they would be happy to look at Mr Young's proposed solution,.

"We stand by our statement of 22 November 2012 that without access to the relevant codebooks and details of any additional encryption used, the message will remain impossible to decrypt," he said.

"Similarly it is also impossible to verify any proposed solutions, but those put forward without reference to the original  cryptographic material are unlikely to be correct."

However, Mr Young, the editor of a local history group, Lakefield Heritage Research, believes "folks are trying to over-think  this matter".

"It's not complex," he says.

Using his great-uncle's Royal Flying Corp [92 Sqd-Canadian] aerial observers' book, he said he was able to work out the note in minutes.

He believes it was written by 27-year-old Sgt William Stott, a Lancashire Fusilier, who had been dropped into Normandy - with pigeons - to report on German positions.  Sgt Stott was killed a few weeks later  and is buried in a Normandy war cemetery.

The code is simple, relying heavily on acronyms, said Mr Young.

Some 250,000 pigeons were used during the war by all services and each was given an identity number. There are two pigeon identification numbers in the message - NURP.40.TW.194 and NURP.37.OK.76. Mr Young says Sgt Stott would have sent both these birds - with identical messages - at the same time, to make sure the information got through.

"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.

"You will see the World War I artillery acronyms are shorter, but, that is because, you have to remember, that, the primitive radio-transmitters that sent the Morse code were run by batteries, and, those didn't last much more than a half-hour tops, probably less.

"Thus all World War I codes had to be S-n-S, Short-n-Sweet.

"And, as you can clearly see, Stott got a major report out on a pigeon."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20749632

[jar1292]

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=23437332&nid=1012&title=secret-code-from-d-day-pigeon-cracked&s_cid=queue-5

here is another story on it!

[stripedelete]

Canadian team captian in action: 

[bakerhillpins]

 

Somebody has been watching holiday flicks. 

[nh_mopar_fan]

LOL!