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Show IN HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE THERE waa seldom an hour during dur-ing the months. he was a steward stew-ard at H.M.C.S. King's College In Halifax that Petty Officer Woodfleld didn't think ahout pigeons. Today Woodtield Is a petty officer lu the R.C.N.'s communications biancn. On the West Coast he has a newly constructed pigeon loft overlooking the sea. A little over a year ago Woodfleld wrote a letter to his commanding officer. It was ahout pigeons and how they could serve the Navy. In his letter Woodfleld had said some things which might have aroused not only surprise but doubt! For Instance, he said he didn't think the navy would have to Invest any money In pigeons. "What I meant to convey was," Woodfleld says, "that If I knew my pigeon fanciers and I was sure I did I would be able to obtain the finest types of birds without spending spend-ing a nickel." He had an Implicit faith that fanciers would donate their finest birds to the Naval Service. Ser-vice. "And they did." he declares. "I recruited birds from fanciers In Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Re-gina Re-gina and Winnipeg. I told them I wanted young pigeons. I asked them to breed pigeons for me and to send them to me while they were young. That's what I wanted young pigeons, pig-eons, fine, young thoroughbred pigeons. I asked them to regard It as a piece of their war effort. "Flying over water is against a pigeon's nature," Woodfleld explains. ex-plains. "They are a land bird. I know of one bird taken to sea for training flight who took off from a signalman's hand, circled the ship and tried to land again on the signalman's sig-nalman's hand. When the bird discovered dis-covered he could not land, he went up high and headed for home. There are many problems, Including fog and storm and gale. We've got to get and train birds to fly over open water through the fog and storm." Woodfleld trains his hlrds one, two and five miles out "in the line of flight" until they reach the patrol area from which they will work. The petty officer explains that pigeons fly by instinct and by light. "Our main idea is to breed and train enough birds to slock all the ships out here," Woodfleld says. "And we'll need plenty of the right kind of birds properly trained. In fact, we are still open to any fine .- - : ti a;,--- ' S ' - r ' " ' ' t. .xuatliv vU,! Petty Officer W. H. Woodfleld, R.C.N., is shown with one of his trained pigeons. A peace-time fancier, he is now successfully training pigeons to fly through fog, snow and rain, from ships at sea bringing important impor-tant messages to shore bases. (At top) An R.C.N, sailor releases two pigeons from a ship at sea. The one at right is a little slow in getting his landing gear up, but his training has been adequate and he will soon be winging his way shoreward. young birds which fanciers across the country would like to ship to us at H.M.C. Dockyard. Esquimau. "We've got to be careful with what we have until we've bred and trained a sufficient number of birds to do the job thoroughly. We've flown them over 60 miles of open sea and they've made it in two hours flying by instinct, mind you. We had a couple fly over 60 miles of sea through a hr-avy snow storm. They made it in fcur hours, battling a strong wind all t'.ip way." The day is not f: r distant, Wood-field Wood-field predicts, when pigeons will be used for emergency messages by all ships of the R.C.N. They will fly incredible distances when they have matured and have been well trained. |