They're ideal soldiers, says Keith Wrightson, looking down at the pigeon in his weathered hands. He's 92 now and slow to catch the birds cooing in the corners of his backyard loft.
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"They used to say I'd make a good slips fieldsman, unfortunately these days all I am good at is catching fresh air."
Wrightson has been racing birds since his teens, teaching them to fly hundreds of kilometres home. In wartime Papua New Guinea, as a member of Australia's pigeon corps, he helped train them to carry crucial messages above the rugged terrain.
Japanese snipers perched in palm trees took pot shots at the pigeons as they flew between patrols, he says. Others were harried by hawks or tropical storms.
Members of the Australian Corps of Signals Pigeon Service found a basket of enemy birds and considered turning them into double agents, sending them back with false messages to befuddle opposing forces. Some were reportedly captured by Axis troops and kept as avian POWs. At least one pigeon switched sides.
"There was one Japanese pigeon that was trained to return to an Australian loft and carried messages against their own forces," Wrightson says.
Pigeons were more reliable than radio in the rough conditions and extreme humidity. They flew between mobile lofts with maps revealing enemy positions or sketches plotting safe passage for troop carriers. Two pigeons were awarded Dickin Medals – the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross – one for bringing help to the crew of a boat foundering in a storm.
"They saved a lot of lives," Wrightson says.
A 370-kilometre pigeon race from Eden to Sydney, on July 11, will recognise the role played by birds of war. The Central Cumberland Racing Pigeon Federation event will also raise money for Legacy to commemorate the Anzac Centenary.
None of the pigeons returned from PNG – they were put down because of Australia's strict quarantine laws. Wrightson came home with Norma, a nurse he met while in hospital with malaria, and they later set up home in Carlton, in Sydney's south, with a pigeon loft by the Hills Hoist.
Norma died about a decade ago, not long after their 60th wedding anniversary. What did she think of the pigeons? . "She tolerated them," Wrightson says.
Each morning at 7.30am, he liberates his flock from the loft and watches them turn circles in the sky. Pigeons respond well to routine, he says. Wartime pigeons were dispatched in pairs in case they were waylaid. "There was no message that didn't reach its destination," he says. "They were obedient and achievers. They would attempt to get home no matter what it cost them."
They were ideal soldiers? "That's a fair description," he says, smiling.
