216. Pigeons

概览

This episode of The Rest Is History turns a comic-sounding subject into a serious historical inquiry: why pigeons, or rock doves, have mattered so much to human societies. Gordon Corera argues that pigeons deserve to be seen as “superheroes of history” because of their long relationship with humans, their symbolic power, and their practical use in communication and intelligence.

The discussion moves from ancient religion and mythology to Roman military communication, medieval pigeon posts, Reuters’ nineteenth-century news service, and wartime use in both world wars. A major focus is Operation Columba, the British Second World War intelligence project that dropped carrier pigeons into occupied Europe to collect reports from ordinary civilians.

The episode also covers the darker side of the human-pigeon relationship: the extinction of the passenger pigeon, modern contempt for feral city pigeons, and the way human cultures have shifted from reverence to disdain. A final bonus clip briefly introduces the Spanish Civil War through the context of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

分段落总结

[01:00] Introducing the Historical Case for Pigeons

[事实] The hosts introduce the episode as an inquiry into the importance, influence, and impact of pigeons.

[事实] Tom explains that the episode was inspired partly by Gordon Corera’s book Operation Columba: The Secret Pigeon Service.

[事实] Corera says he wants to argue that pigeons are “the superheroes of history,” having helped in the past and perhaps being able to help again in the future.

[推测] The episode frames pigeons as a way to examine the broader historical relationship between humans and animals.

[04:18] What a Pigeon Is

[事实] Corera explains that the common pigeon is essentially a dove, specifically the rock dove, Columba livia.

[事实] He says doves have good public relations while pigeons have bad public relations.

[事实] Rock doves originally liked cliffs and rocky ledges, which made them well suited to dovecots and later to city buildings.

[事实] Their comfort around people made them easy to domesticate and useful for food, sport, breeding, and communication.

[06:10] Sacred and Mythological Pigeons

[事实] The discussion begins with Noah’s Ark, where the dove succeeds in bringing back news of land after the raven fails.

[事实] Pigeons and doves are linked in religious traditions with peace, chastity, fidelity, fertility, sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit in Christianity.

[事实] Corera connects these associations to observations of pigeon courtship and their reputation for loyalty.

[事实] The hosts also mention the release of white pigeons or doves at Olympic ceremonies, including the 1988 Seoul Olympics incident in which birds settled on the Olympic flame.

[09:44] Classical Writers and Ancient Value

[事实] Tom discusses Herodotus’ story of two black doves connected with the oracles of Siwa and Dodona, and Herodotus’ skeptical interpretation that they may have been Egyptian priestesses.

[事实] Pliny the Elder is cited for several claims about pigeons, including their longevity, eggs, relationship with peacocks, and supposed vulnerability to human teeth.

[事实] Pliny also records that valuable homing pigeons in Rome could sell for very high sums, with one pair around 50 BC said to cost 400 denarii.

[推测] The classical material shows both practical interest in pigeons and a willingness to fold them into myth, symbolism, and speculation.

[13:32] The Homing Superpower

[事实] Corera says pigeons can be transported hundreds of miles away and still orient themselves toward home.

[事实] He gives a range of at least 600 miles and says selective breeding can improve distance and speed.

[事实] The exact mechanism remains uncertain, though possibilities include the sun and the Earth’s magnetic field.

[事实] Pigeons return because they associate home with food and safety.

[15:34] Communication from Egypt to Rome

[事实] Corera says Egyptians used pigeons at least 5,000 years ago to warn about flooding on the Nile.

[事实] In the Roman period, Julius Caesar is thought to have used pigeons in Gaul, and Decimus Brutus used them during a siege to send messages for help.

[事实] Pigeons can only be sent reliably back to a home location, so their use depends on training them to return to a loft, headquarters, or base.

[推测] This limitation made pigeons less flexible than two-way communication, but highly valuable when a fixed base needed messages from distant or dangerous places.

[18:38] Pigeon Post Across the World

[事实] Pigeon post is described as being used in China, between Baghdad and Cairo in the twelfth century, and by Genghis Khan.

[事实] Corera says pigeons can fly around 60 miles per hour for sustained periods and cover hundreds of miles in a day.

[事实] They were especially useful when human messengers would have to cross hostile or difficult territory.

[事实] Reuters began in 1850 with Julius Reuter using pigeons to carry stock prices between Brussels and Germany faster than other methods.

[21:07] Nineteenth-Century Fame and the Siege of Paris

[事实] Corera says pigeons entered popular consciousness more strongly in the nineteenth century.

[事实] During the Siege of Paris in 1870, pigeons carried an estimated couple of million messages.

[事实] Some pigeons were brought into Paris by hot-air balloon before being released with messages.

[事实] Pigeon racing became especially popular in Belgium and other countries in the late nineteenth century.

[22:48] First World War Pigeons and Cher Ami

[事实] The hosts discuss Blackadder Goes Forth and the fictional Speckled Jim while asking whether shooting pigeons was a capital offence in the trenches.

[事实] Corera says pigeons were targeted by snipers but were also relied on heavily for communication.

[事实] He cites Major General Fowler, who said that if only one front-line communication method could remain, he would choose pigeons.

[事实] Cher Ami, a pigeon used by the US Army’s 77th Division, carried a message that stopped friendly shelling of the trapped “Lost Battalion” despite being badly wounded.

[事实] Cher Ami lost a leg, was blinded, survived the flight, and was later preserved in the Smithsonian.

[28:25] Operation Columba and the People’s War

[事实] After the break, Corera explains that pigeons played an underappreciated role in the Second World War.

[事实] Britain had about 70,000 pigeon lofts at the start of the war, and pigeon racing was part of working-class culture.

[事实] Operation Columba was run by MI14 subsection D, the Special Continental Pigeon Service.

[事实] The operation dropped pigeons in canisters behind enemy lines with a note, proof of British origin, and questionnaires asking about German troops, morale, food, and BBC reception.

[事实] Many pigeons were donated by ordinary British pigeon fanciers.

[31:58] Messages from Occupied Europe

[事实] Corera found archive files containing returned messages on pink slips from occupied France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

[事实] Some replies were brief, while others contained valuable intelligence about German activity.

[事实] One Belgian message, known as message 37, was written by a Catholic priest who used tiny calligraphy learned as a missionary in China.

[事实] The message produced around a dozen pages of intelligence and was shown to Churchill.

[推测] Corera reads the message as important not only for intelligence, but also as evidence of civilian resistance under occupation.

[34:11] Pigeons, Radar, and Modern Weapons

[事实] R. V. Jones used the Operation Columba questionnaire to ask civilians about strange rotating structures.

[事实] This helped identify German radar stations in rural locations.

[事实] Corera says a number of German radar stations were spotted thanks to Operation Columba and then destroyed.

[事实] Intelligence carried back by pigeons also helped identify V1 and V2 launch sites.

[推测] The episode uses this as an example of an old communication method assisting responses to very modern military technology.

[35:29] Falcons, German Pigeons, and Wartime Absurdity

[事实] The Germans also used pigeons and were described as more organized than the British.

[事实] MI5 worried that peregrine falcons were killing British intelligence pigeons and created a Falcon Destruction Unit.

[事实] The unit travelled around British cliffs killing falcons, and one member died after falling from a cliff.

[事实] MI5 later worried that German agents might be sending pigeons from Britain and created a falcon unit to hunt suspected “Nazi pigeons.”

[事实] The unit killed pigeons on the Isles of Scilly, but Corera says they only killed British pigeons and found no Nazi pigeons.

[38:41] Winky and RAF Rescue Work

[事实] The RAF gave pigeons to aircraft flying over the sea in case planes ditched and radios failed.

[事实] Winky was aboard a plane that ditched, escaped without a message, and returned covered in oil.

[事实] The loft owner and the RAF used Winky’s return and flight timing to estimate the plane’s location.

[事实] The crew were found and rescued in their dinghy.

[事实] Winky was decorated and attended an RAF dinner, though Corera suggests the bird’s “winking” may have reflected exhaustion.

[40:30] Pigeons After the Second World War

[事实] Corera found records of a Joint Intelligence Committee subcommittee on pigeons after the war.

[事实] The committee considered whether Britain should keep a pigeon research capability in the atomic age.

[事实] Britain appears to have stopped after the Second World War.

[事实] In the CIA museum, Corera saw a stuffed pigeon fitted with a tiny camera.

[事实] CIA pigeon missions involved automatic camera shutters, and details of spy pigeon missions were described as still classified until recently.

[42:02] The “Pigeon Gap” and Future Communications

[事实] Corera raises what he calls the “pigeon gap,” inspired by reports that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had trained 10,000 carrier pigeons.

[事实] The stated reason was to preserve communication if cyber attacks took out electronic systems.

[事实] Corera says senior security officials responded with blank stares when he raised the issue.

[推测] His warning is partly humorous, but it also points to a real concern about resilience when modern communications fail.

[44:12] Racing, Breeding, and Darwin

[事实] Dominic mentions that a racing pigeon sold for almost two million dollars in China in November 2020.

[事实] Corera says pigeon racing and breeding remain strong in Asia and parts of the Middle East.

[事实] He compares the breeding of fast, valuable pigeons to the breeding of racehorses.

[事实] Darwin discussed pigeons in On the Origin of Species because artificial selection in pigeons helped illustrate ideas related to natural selection.

[45:32] The Passenger Pigeon Extinction

[事实] The passenger pigeon was different from the homing pigeon but lived in enormous North American colonies.

[事实] The hosts say passenger pigeons existed in the billions and moved in flocks so large they could sound like Niagara Falls and darken the sky.

[事实] John James Audubon’s 1813 description is used to evoke flocks passing for three days.

[事实] Passenger pigeons were shot in vast numbers, especially from about 1870 to 1890, and were gone by around the turn of the century or the First World War.

[推测] The extinction is presented as one of the starkest examples of human destruction of abundant animal life.

[48:00] Why City Pigeons Are Maligned

[事实] The hosts discuss the modern insult “rats with wings” and Ken Livingstone’s hostility to pigeons.

[事实] Corera argues that pigeons are unfairly maligned.

[事实] He says many feral city pigeons descend from domesticated birds that humans raised in dovecots.

[事实] He contrasts their ancient sacred status with their modern reputation as dirty urban scavengers.

[推测] The shift in reputation reflects changing human attitudes more than any simple change in the birds themselves.

[49:23] Cinematic Pigeons and Closing Reflections

[事实] The hosts mention the animated film Valiant, the pigeon double take in Moonraker, and Catch the Pigeon.

[事实] They close by returning to Corera’s book Operation Columba: The Secret Pigeon Service.

[事实] The hosts jokingly suggest that pigeons won the Second World War and saved Europe from Nazism.

[推测] The comic ending keeps the episode light while reinforcing its central claim that pigeons deserve more historical attention.

[52:01] Bonus Clip on the Spanish Civil War

[事实] After the main episode, Dominic introduces a clip from The Book Club about Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and the Spanish Civil War.

[事实] The clip describes Spain before the war as politically turbulent, socially unequal, and divided between rural traditional structures and industrialized regions such as Catalonia and the Basque Country.

[事实] It explains that the 1936 army coup did not fully succeed, leaving Spain split between Nationalists and Republicans.

[事实] The Nationalists received strong support from Mussolini and Hitler, while the Republicans eventually received Soviet support and help from foreign volunteers.

[事实] The clip emphasizes the bitterness and violence of the civil war, including massacres and mass graves.

播客点评/总结

The episode’s value lies in taking an apparently comic subject and showing that it touches religion, empire, communications, intelligence, science, sport, and extinction. Corera’s strongest material is the wartime history, especially Operation Columba, Cher Ami, Winky, and the absurd but revealing falcon operations.

Its tone is deliberately playful, with frequent jokes from the hosts, but the historical substance is clear. The episode works especially well when it shows how low-tech systems could remain useful even during periods defined by advanced weapons, radar, aircraft, and intelligence bureaucracy.

[推测] A limitation is that some claims are presented in conversational form rather than as closely sourced argument within the transcript itself, so listeners looking for a rigorous academic treatment may want Corera’s book or archival sources. Still, for general history listeners, the episode offers a lively and memorable reassessment of an animal often dismissed in modern cities.