WWII Carrier Pigeon Delivers Message

[vienna]

...and I thought the USPS was slow...

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/wwii-carrier-pigeon-finally-delivers-secret-message-161220880--abc-news-topstories.html

Well, you know, when absolutely, positively has to be the in 70 years...

<O>

[Jimbuna]

.....and the message read "I'm hungry, feed me" :)

[vienna]

..or, maybe, "Urgent!! Disregard previous message..."

<O>

[August]

Well the message was sent by a sergeant. It couldn't have been that earth shaking. :)

[AVGWarhawk]

The message read. "The British are coming."

[Jimbuna]

OR...."Hope this arrives before christmas...don't overcook".

[Stealhead]

Interesting my grandfather was in the US Army Signal Corps used carrier pigeons very often of course other times he got to walk around with a case handcuffed to his wrist.He preferred the carrier pigeons to be the messenger.He became an NCO fairly quickly and got billeted with an older British couple whose son had been KIA during the Battle of Britain not sure what their name was but I could look it up he wrote very detailed letters to my grandmother.The son had been listed as MIA at first but the parents knew that he was dead later in the war the RAF changed his status to KIA but the parents had already accepted his fate.

The war was not too bad for him he spent most of his time in England except for some very exciting weeks right after D-Day.He told me that the both the Allies and the Germans hand trained falcons whose job it was to kill enemy carrier pigeons not sure that they could tell allied carrier pigeons from Axis though I guess that they would keep the falcons near the lines and let them go when they saw a bird fly from German lines.I think a common counter to this was to release several carrier pigeons at the same time some with no message.

[Herr-Berbunch]

I beat you to it but nobody noticed. :cry:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=199534

[HunterICX]

Guess we finally know now where one of these ended up :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rL9-Va6_SVY#t=148s

:D

HunterICX

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

I beat you to it but nobody noticed. :cry:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=199534I noticed and wondered why nobody posted link to existing thread. :) Not sure why I didn't do it myself. :hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

I beat you to it but nobody noticed. :cry:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=199534

Well I did and I responded....I simply forgot :doh:

[Tribesman]

Guess we finally know now where one of these ended up :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...Va6_SVY#t=148s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rL9-Va6_SVY#t=148s)

I was expecting that to be Specled Jim.

[Oberon]

Update bump, has the message been decoded?

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

[clive bradbury]

The whole idea that the code used was a collection of simple acronyms is ridiculous - what is the guy thinking? He obviously knows nothing at all about coding - his 'translations' make no sense at all anyway - he seems to have just made it all up with no basis on fact or history. He even thinks that the number '27' at the end of the message is part of the date!

Have you also seen his patronising comments about front line troops being too stupid to carry out ciphering? If that is what passes for a local history group in Canada ...

Almost certainly this message will never be broken, as it is most likely a 'one-time pad' - which cannot be broken if procedures were followed correctly. It is the one cipher system which can be mathematically proven to be unbreakable, and is EXACTLY the system which would be chosen for pigeon messages.