Recently my wife and I were touring the Airplane Heritage Museum in Everett WA. There was the front portion of a Lancaster bomber there. Only the front of the fuselage was on display but you could step up to it and view the inside of the front portion of the airplane. I noticed that the Plexiglas canopy covered part of the roof of the plane. It covered the direction finder antenna and three strange net like things there. These net things are about the size that a beer can would fit in nicely and were attached to the top of the roof under the Plexiglas. I was told that these are where they put the messenger pigeons. Well, I'm no so sure about that but I would like to know what these things are for. Anyone know? Thanks Greg
Hi Greg, Well I'm not sure what they were used for, but I don't think they were used for pigeons. There is a photo in Lancaster at War 2 showing two aircrew holding boxes a bit bigger than a tool box, containing the pigeons. The practice of using pigeons was abandoned around mid 1943. I hope someone will be able to tell you what the net things were used for. Regards, Wayne.
The pigeon service continued until post war, they were used at the beaches in Normandy, and later as well. The Aussies used something like 35,000 homing pigeons in the PTO since communications in the jungles was so difficult. The British Royal Air Force determined that one in every seven of its crewmen who were rescued after being forced down at sea owed his life to a message sent by pigeon. B-17 bomber crews found that, although they had to wear oxygen masks and heated suits at 20,000 feet, pigeons needed no special equipment. Even at 35,000 feet, with the temperature at 45 degrees below zero, the birds just sat there, eyes half shut, feathers fluffed against the cold. Special drop boxes had been designed to protect the bird’s wings from being ripped off when they were released from an airplane and entered the slipstream. They opened at a predetermined altitude. But pigeon handlers soon learned the pigeons could be released from high altitudes at speeds of 375 mph with no more protection than an ordinary paper grocery bag. A bag was slit down the side and the pigeon put in headfirst, with the bag neatly folded around it. A handler held the bag so it looked, as one observer put it, like "a coupleof pounds of pork chops fresh from the butcher" and dropped it into the slipstream. Soon the bag fluttered open and the bird emerged, spreading its wings and spiraling down to a more comfortable altitude before flying for home. Here is a site which has a pretty good rundown on the pigeon service. Goto: Pigeons of War The pigeons were carried in small "packs" mounted in the fuselage of the larger planes, and released with the "last known position" in the leg capsule. Then when the pigeon got home, the search teams had a "starting point" from which to begin their search.
Thanks so much for your replies. I will keep looking for the answer to these net things on the top of Lancasters Greg
