There are often pigeons pictured with Kamadeva, one of the oldest Hindu love gods. There are also pigeons associated with Christianity. Christian religion tells the story of Noah who sent a pigeon three times to look for a dry piece of land, and then the pigeon arrived back with mud on its feet. Pigeons informed the home front on victories and defeats of kings and generals. Napoleon's defeat in the battle of Waterloo was reported to England by pigeons.
During the siege of Paris of 1870, pigeons brought 150,000 official letters and a million private letters into Paris during those four months.
At war, pigeons proved to be a valuable service. They served during two World Wars, delivering messages that saved hundreds of lives. In fact, they had a 98 percent rate in their missions during World War II. Flight speeds in pigeons can reach 50 to 60 miles an hour, and their messaging system is not affected by today's electronic jamming. In fact, pigeons are reportedly still in service by the Chinese, French, Israeli, Iraqi and Swiss armies.
During wartime, carrier pigeons were used by all sides to transport messages from point to point. Pigeons were routinely deployed from the front lines to carry status reports back to headquarters.
Although the telephone was the preferred method of communication, once troops had moved forward (or even retreated) beyond existing lines, there was a delay while fresh telephone lines were laid. In addition, pigeons were commonly used to report progress on battle actions. During World War I some actions were undertaken after forces were informed by photos taken by military pigeons.
There is a war memorial in Lille (France) that remembers the more then 20,000 military pigeons that were killed during the war. Airplanes and war-ships were always accompanied by pigeons. During World War I, Military pigeons brought 717 messages of crashed airplanes at sea. Ninety-five percent of the military pigeons returned from their mission. Four hundred forty-two pigeons were used during the offensive of Mense-Argonne. They brought 403 messages. Many birds were badly injured.
There were more than 3,000 soldiers and 150 officers of the United States Pigeon Service to take care of 54,000 military pigeons. Some of those pigeons were trained to fly at night, they went together with the field-post, paratroopers and submarines and made pictures of the enemy's fleet, troops and targets for air attacks.
There were some limitations, however. Pigeons could only be trained to fly to known positions, they could therefore only be deployed from the front line to rear positions and not in the other direction unless troops were settled in a particular location for a lengthy period of time.
Pigeons were also carried aboard warships and sea planes as a means of communications backup should radio communications break down. During wartime, the killing, wounding or molesting of working homing pigeons meant six months imprisonment or a hefty monetary fine.
