Dimensions
159 x 240 x 32mm
A riveting spy story set in World War Two. Using declassified documents and extensive original research, Secret Pigeon Service tells the dramatic untold story of MI 14(d) and its spy networks including the remarkable ‘Leopold Vindictive', a Belgian resistance cell who used the pigeon they found in 1941 to spy on the Nazis. Everyone has heard of MI5 and MI6. Some may even have heard of MI9 which helped downed airmen escape in World War II. But few will know of MI14(d) – the ‘Special Pigeon Service,' where Operation Columba was conceived.From 1941 though 1944, sixteen thousand pigeons were dropped in an arc from Bordeaux in Southern France to Copenhagen in Denmark as part of ‘Columba' – a secret British operation to bring back intelligence from those living under Nazi occupation. In a war that began with Blitzkrieg and ended with the atom bomb, pigeons had a unique place in intelligence. Long before Twitter, social media and modern communications technology, the near-miraculous ability of trained pigeons to return to their home loft even if dropped in a strange place hundreds of miles away offered an unrivalled means of receiving news and communicating in secret in near-real time.In a previously unheard account, which follows the Belgian intelligence cell named ‘Leopold Vindictive', led by a priest named Jozef Raskin, Gordon Corera uncovers the secrets of this most special aerial secret unit. Columba tells the compelling story of how a priest, a flock, and 3mm tubes containing war intel conspired together and became a significant force in the world of intelligence during the Second World War.
