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“How happy am I in writing these words to be able to help you in a concrete manner and why do my broken wings prevent me from accompanying the faithful messenger which we are cherishing as one of our own soldiers……I know that many pigeons get back to you……For my part I am counting on finding others.” —excerpt from a message delivered by a pigeon from France in July, 1941 “The peasant is requisitioned for more potatoes than he grows and for more grain so that he is left with almost nothing for his own animals. Discontent is general and one asks oneself why, with so few troops to oppose you there is not a landing on the conquered coast……After the war I would like to replace the pigeons which they have killed and as I am a lover of pigeons, your one could hardly have come into better hands……Farmers complain of the demands for butter and milk for the Co-operative at Verton and would like to see its disappearance. We would rejoice in its destruction, because there they work for ‘them.’” —excerpt from a message delivered by pigeon number DSR 65 from France in October, 1941 In The World War II Pigeons and the Secret Columba Messages, 30 World War II era documents tell the story of Operation Columba, a collaboration between people and pigeons which delivered intelligence from occupied Europe to Britain. Under the German occupation, sending a message with a pigeon was a crime punishable by death. Read what people risked their lives to write in messages on rice paper delivered by pigeons flying hundreds of miles.