Sadly, the Record Copying Department at The National Archives, Kew remains closed. This prompted me to go through all of files from the past five years. Bit by bit, some of the Columba messages from those files will be posted here.
The Columba messages were the messages delivered by the pigeons who participated in Operation Columba, the British effort to collect intelligence from occupied Europe. Pigeons in small cages attached to small parachutes were dropped into France, Holland, and Belgium. It was hoped that people would find the pigeons and send back answers to the questions on the questionnaire, even though, under the German occupation, sending a message with a pigeon was a crime punishable by death. In the fourth message posted, you will see a reference to that danger. The British are asked by the message writer not to drop pigeons in thickly populated areas. People were afraid to be seen picking up a pigeon. The British learned that it was more expeditious to drop the pigeons in the countryside.
A few weeks ago I bought a pigeon calendar for 2021. It includes a photo of the lovely African Green Pigeon. Some photos of the African Green Pigeon are posted to provide a bit of beauty after the emotions and circumstances described in the messages.
(c) Crown copyright images reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, Kew, UK
Catalog numbers: WO208/3560 #5, #6, #7, #12, #13, #16, #17
You can use the scroll bar at the bottom of the page to scroll left-right for the messages which exceed the frame.
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