EOTO Technology presentations

 Carrier Pigeons

    One of my classmates did his EOTO on the carrier pigeons. From his project, I learned a lot and thought it was very interesting. 

 Carrier pigeons were invented by Cyrus the Great in the 5th century BC, in Assyria and Persia. They were used in war and for navigation. They were the most efficient long-distance communication of that time. 

Before carrier pigeons, their only options were smoke signals to communicate a short distance away. 

    

    Something really cool about pigeons is that they are usually always able to find their way home. Their homing abilities were very useful for sending these messages. Scientists think they use the position of the sun the figure out where they are and determine
the proper direction for the flight. 

  Since they were able to send information farther than anything else before,  they were very useful in war. A carrier pigeon saved almost 200 lives in World War I.  32 pigeons received the Dickin Medal because they were able to save the lives of soldiers because of their ability to send messages when there was nothing else during that time to send messages that long distance and that efficient. For example, people at sea were able to send a message to the soldiers on land. 

  One drawback to the carrier pigeons was that there is a limitation to how far they are able to fly. They are able to fly around 100 miles in one day. They also were very susceptible to disease and their training took time and experience. 

   One bird named Cher Ami was delivering messages for French soldiers during the battle of Verdun in October of 1918. Even though a German gunner tried to strike the pigeon down and it was injured it still traveled 25 miles back to the American base. The letter told them that they had traveled too far and became trapped in a ravine where they weathered repeated enemy attacks along with incoming friendly American artillery fire. This was 554 soldiers. Cher Ami arrived blinded in one eye, with a deep wound across his chest and a canister dangling from what was left of his right leg but she made it and saved many lives. She became an American hero of World War I.