Friday 18 January 2008

Darth Vader has no hope at all!- # 357


Ask your search engine about the "Dicken Medal"
This is a British decoration awarded to animals who have performed brilliantly in war and saved lives by their actions. The role of honour includes, alongside dogs and horses, (I hope I'm correct) about 52 pigeons and one cat. The pigeons all have illustrious names and pedigrees and Simon the Royal Navy cat did a remarkably important job comforting the wounded and protecting the dwindling food supply from rats on board HMS Amethyst.

2 comments:

  1. OH - we saw the most brilliant documentary recently on the role of pigeons during WWII. It was extraordinary! I had no idea how crucial they were to the war effort.
    They used to drop them out of planes over France in little boxes with parachutes, the germans trained falcons(?) to kill them. Those little birds deserved those medals (although I guess it didn't mean much to them!).
    Now, we just think of them as sky rats.

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