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Show GERMAN PIGEON, WAR CAPTIVE, IS ENJOYING LIFE Sixteen years ago, just before the end of the World war, writes Helen C. Loomls in the Detroit News, American Amer-ican soldiers participating In the St. Mihiel drive in France found two homing pigeons, Rheingold and Helene, in a dugout that had been occupied by German soldiers. Both birds were taken captive and Rheingold, Rhein-gold, since rechrlstened Wllhelm, Is still alive and enjoying good health at the pigeon lofts of the U. S. A. signal corps at Fort Monmouth, N. J Capt. Edgar L. Clewell, public relations officer of the signal corps, reports. A number of other pigeons were captured by American forces during the war, but Wllhelm Is the sole survivor sur-vivor of them all and likewise holds the distinction of being the only one of all of them to claim the Royal Bavarian lofts as his first home. He still wears with pride the band bearing the Imprint of the German Ger-man royal crown and crest, proof of his former associations with royalty. Like that other Wilhelm, who was destined to spend so many years of his life on alien soil, and for whom he was named by his American captors cap-tors when it was discovered through his leg band that he had been bred in the Royal Bavarian lofts, the pigeon pi-geon Wilhelm carries his years well. For at seventeen, an age at which most homing pigeons have long since passed on, he appears as hale and hearty as many much younger birds, nor has he lost his excellent homing Instincts. |