After the Wehrmacht occupied Western Europe, much of the British intelligence network ceased to exist. Agents were arrested, radio stations were susceptible to detection by German interception, and London lost access to information from occupied countries.
The British therefore resorted to a solution that might have seemed outdated even at the time: carrier pigeons.
As part of Operation Columba, thousands of carrier pigeons were parachuted over France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The containers contained instructions, intelligence questions, paper, a pencil, food, and a request addressed to the finder. The person who found the pigeon had to decide whether to ignore the package and hand it over to the Germans, or risk their life and send their own report to Great Britain.
One of these birds ended up in the hands of a group of Belgian conspirators. The report he later delivered to London proved to be one of the most remarkable intelligence documents of World War II. This is the story of Operation Columba – an unusual experiment based on courage, chance, and trust in complete strangers.

Links to sources used in this article:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/review...

https://southernladymagazine.com/book...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_R...

https://www.chalkefestival.com/histor... he-secret-pigeon-service-heroes-who-risked-all-for-the-birds-dropped-behind-enemy-lines-who-flew-home-with-vital-intelligence-and-left-the-nazi-flapping/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-2...
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n...

00:00 Introduction
01:00 British Intelligence Loses Eyes and Ears
02:40 An Idea Older Than World War II
04:52 The British Army Returns to Pigeons
07:11 Rex Pearson and the Birth of Operation Columba
09:02 Why Was the Pigeon the Ideal Courier?
12:01 The First Experimental Drops
13:41 What Was in the Container?
15:26 British Intelligence Questions
17:43 The First Mission Over Occupied Europe
18:21 The First Reports Reach London
20:07 The Scale of Operation Columba
21:27 Why Did Most Pigeons Not Return? 22:58 The Germans Respond
24:11 Luftwaffe's False Pigeons
24:58 The Mystery of Report No. 37
26:39 Father Józef Raskin
28:06 An Extraordinary Intelligence Report Is Being Produced
29:32 Seven Hours Over the North Sea
30:50 Who Was "Leopold Vindictive 200"?
32:18 The Further Fate of the Belgian Conspirators
34:29 Did Operation "Columba" Make Sense?
36:15 End of Program
36:46 An Experiment Based on Trust
37:20 Final Reflection

"Souvenirs, or Scaffolding of Memories" by @kanal_hindusa, a channel I dedicated to interesting people, places, and events that are not often discussed elsewhere. You can find more information about me and my channel in the episode below: Pytania i odpowiedzi – ja i mój kanał

If you're interested in this story, you might also like my other stories from the Second World War: watchv=_v42swghhoc&list=plsl6p0wr4vqzomn5f...

I do not own the rights to the photographs used in this video; they were used for educational purposes under fair use principles.
The video was created for educational purposes.
The song "Deep Space" (by Audionautix) is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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