(By SWNS / Talker News)
A rare World War II ‘pigeon parachute’ used to carry messages to the French resistance in Normandy ahead of D-Day has been found in a tattered old shoebox.
It was discovered—along with other D-Day-related documents—in the loft of a woman named Mrs. Ellington, who recently passed away in England.
Her family was left scratching their heads over the artifact—how it came to be there and what it was exactly. They had no idea what the fabric item was used for.
They were astonished to discover that she’d been keeping in her possession a very rare D-day pigeon parachute—and now they’ve donated the surviving piece of history to a museum.
The pigeon parachutes were used over Normandy in the days before the Allied Forces landed in France on June 6th, 1944.
Ahead of the planned attack, the British gathered homing pigeons from the local areas of coastal Normandy and used them to carry messages to the French resistance while the area was occupied and defended by thousands of Nazi troops.
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The pigeons carried instructions about blowing up communication lines, armories, and transports.
The pigeon would have been dropped by a light plane low over France, and once released the pigeons could struggle free of the parachute and fly off to their home coop.
This method was considered safer than using coded radio messages.
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The pigeon parachute is now on display in the D-Day exhibition at House on the Hill Museum in Standsted Mountfitchet, Essex.
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