#2031 Special Event: War Pigeons: Winged Couriers in the U.S. Military, 1878-1957

#2031 Special Event: War Pigeons: Winged Couriers in the U.S. Military, 1878-1957

Presenter: Elizabeth G. Macalaster

Author Elizabeth Macalaster of Brunswick, ME will discuss her new book, War Pigeons: Winged Couriers in the U.S. Military, 1878-1957 (McFarland Books, October 2020).

For more than seven decades homing pigeons provided the U.S military with its fastest most reliable means of communication. Trained by pigeoneers to fly up to 60 mph for hundreds of miles, homing pigeons served our country in four wars on four continents. Weighing barely a pound, these extraordinary birds carried messages in and out of gas, smoke, exploding bombs and gunfire. They flew unwavering through jungles and over desert and icy mountains, not faltering even when faced with an expanse of ocean to cross. Time and again, when all other means of communication failed, pigeons were trusted to carry home vital messages. Sometimes they arrived nearly dead from wounds or exhaustion, but only death itself stopped them.  War Pigeons, is the first complete accounting of the remarkable service of homing pigeons with American armed forces, from its fledgling beginnings after the Civil War, to the birds’ invaluable role in communications through both world wars and beyond. War Pigeons chronicles a poignant and enduring legacy.

Elizabeth Macalaster started her career as a marine biologist, studying a deep-water, North Atlantic octopus. She then turned to science journalism and worked for the Department of the Interior and the EPA on water quality issues. Macalaster writes science and history articles for magazines and newspapers on topics ranging from bridges to homing pigeons.  Macalaster also likes to write haibuns, and her poems have appeared in online journals and in the anthologies, The Best of Write Action, No. 2 (2010), and Prey Tell (2015).

Purchase the book on Amazon.

Learn more about the author:  https://elizabethgmacalaster.com/

Location: Zoom (Zooming from Maine)

Wednesday, June 23, 10am

$35 Non-PILLAR Member/$25 PILLAR Member