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Show Pigeons Enacting Iciv Roles in War Unsung Heroes Valuable in Carrying Messages. MOLINE, ILL. Homing pigeons, the unsung heroes, are playing a prominent part with their message-carrying message-carrying in the war. Leslie C. Swanson of Moline, 111., author of two books and a number of magazine articles on the subject of homing or racing pigeons, has compiled a list of accomplishments of the Allies' feathered warriors which include such things as bringing bring-ing help to fliers downed at sea or in isolated sectors, flying information informa-tion from occupied Europe to England Eng-land and serving as a communication communica-tion link, with advance forces. Pigeons are also used by dirigibles diri-gibles and planes to provide data on the location of submarines when radio messages would have served to warn the prey. War developments are likewise affecting the pigeons, vast changes having been introduced in the methods meth-ods of handling them. There are such innovations as two-way flying and night-flying birds, whereas in the first world war pigeons could fly only one way from the point of liberation to their home loft. How it is done is a carefully guarded military secret. Despite recent exaggerated claims that pigeons are flying 300 miles an hour, Swanson reports that the speed of the average bird is 42.5 miles an hour, more or less, depending de-pending upon wind and weather conditions. con-ditions. With a tail wind a Detroit pigeon recently seti a record of 80 miles an hour. Much credit for the success of the U. S. army's pigeon service goes to civilian fanciers, who donated thousands of birds to the government govern-ment and contributed a great number num-ber of men from their ranks to handle them. Swanson emphasizes that' the pigeons pig-eons are correctly called, homing or "r.cing pigeons and not carrier pigeons, pig-eons, a common error of the public and many magazine and newspaper writers in discussing this type of pigeon. m . |