UK to use pigeon to mislead Nazis

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The Secret Service planned to drop pigeons carrying misleading information behind enemy lines in France during the run-up to the D-Day landings.

False information about the location of the landings was to be strapped to the birds in the hope that the Germans would be duped into planning to fight the invasion force in the wrong place.

Previously secret files released under the Freedom of Information Act at the National Archives in Kew, south west London, detail the Secret Services plans for "using pigeons for deception purposes".

The files reveal that the Allies had sent thousands of carrier pigeons into occupied France during the war, with each bird fitted with information to help the French Resistance and other groups.

But only 10% of the birds dropped into Europe by MI14 ever returned to their home lofts, leading the Security Service to believe that many of these birds fell into German hands.

In 1943 MI14 actively considered taking advantage of this by fitting a number of pigeons with mis-information that would lead German Intelligence to believe that the D-Day landings would take place in Pas de Calais and not, as planned, further to the west in Normandy.

Lieutenant Colonel Robertson from the War Cabinet outlined how the pigeons could be effective in passing on information, via a letter he sent to intelligence staff.

He wrote: "Pigeons are at present being dropped in Occupied territory by parachute.

"The pigeon is sent in a cardboard container which can quickly be buried or burnt with a little bag of corn and a questionnaire accompanying each pigeon."