China’s Most Secret Weapon: The Messenger Pigeon
T hough the world’s attention has recently been focused on the unveiling of China’s first ever stealth fighter jet, the Chinese military has been busy investing in another type of furtive flyer: the humble messenger pigeon. According to reports in state media, late last year, the Chengdu division of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began training 10,000 pigeons as part of a push to build a “reserve pigeon army” that would provide support to the military’s conventional communications infrastructure in the event that war rendered its plethora of modern technology unusable.
“These military pigeons will be primarily called upon to conduct special military missions between troops stationed at our land borders or ocean borders,” air force military expert Chen Hong told China Central Television after the announcement. According to reports, the birds will be dispersed to communications bases across China’s remote and mountainous southwestern region, particularly around the Himalayan foothills. The pigeons, flying at speeds of up to 75 miles (120 km) per hour, will be trained to carry loads of up to 3.5 oz. (100 g).
The birds have a long history of service in China. Messenger pigeons have been used in the country for more than a thousand years, and pigeons have been earning their military stripes here since at least the late 1930s. In 1937 Lieutenant Claire Lee Chennault, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot, arrived in China to head up a group of U.S.-sponsored aviators known as the Flying Tigers, tasked with taking to the air to repel the Japanese invasion of the mainland. He brought with him hundreds of messenger pigeons to help with the war effort, and after the war, he left the birds behind. That group of pigeons would form the core of the PLA’s first military pigeon brigade.
