Hero Pigeon's Medal Fetches A Coooo...l £8000 At Auction

A Second World War medal awarded to a pigeon for her service to the RAF has been sold an impressive £8,680 (inclusive) at auction.

Princess was among 32 pigeons that have received the Dickin Medal, which is the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

Auctioneer Russell Beard previously described the medal as:

“Very rare and a collector’s dream.”

Princess was awarded the medal after returning safely to her loft at RAF Alexandria from a 500 mile mission to deliver vital information.

Today, she is known in the history books as one of the finest performances in the war record of the Pigeon service.

Russell the auctioneer went on to say:

“Further investigation revealed that Princess bravely flew messages across the Mediterranean Sea from Crete to Alexandria giving details of German atrocities as they ransacked villages across the island.”

Unfortunately, before Princess could be bestowed with the honour she died. In her place the medal was presented to a fellow RAF pigeon in May 1946.

The medal was discovered at a recent open valuation day at Milletts Farm near Abingdon.

During both World Wars, carrier pigeons were often used as military messengers because of their homing ability, speed and altitude

When they landed at their locations wires in the coop would sound a bell or buzzer and a soldier of the Signal Corps would know a message had arrived.

He would remove the message from the canister and send it to its destination by telegraph, field phone or personal messenger.

Enemy soldiers often tried to shoot pigeons, knowing that the birds were carrying messages.