Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 18, 2015 0:36:09 GMT 12
This comes from the New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25374, 1 December 1945, Page 10
"THE STRANGEST BATTLE OF THIS WAR"
FALCON PATROL ON BRITAIN'S COAST
By MACDONALD HASTINGS
Here is a story concerning the most bizarre squadron in the Allied air forces in the European War; so bizarre that, until V-E Day, its existence had to be a close secret. It was called officially the No. 2 Interception Unit. And the other day, in a tiny cottage which is the unit's headquarters, I was allowed to peep into the hangars and see inside.
Fifteen penetrating pairs of orange eyes glared back at me. Outlined against the whitewashed walls fifteen menacing shapes huddled on a long perch. Above them flew an ensign on a blue ground, the flag of the Royal Air Force.
The No. 2 Interception Unit was a team of hawks, peregrine falcons. And their war duty was to intercept pigeons suspected of carrying information to the enemy.
For three years they had been flying in secrecy for the Allies. And here, from the heart of the English countryside, from the headquarters of the Falcon (No. 2) Interception Unit, I met one of the two men who flew the hawks in what, surely, was the strangest battle of this war. His name is Bob Bromley; young, handsome, tough as nails, eyes like a hawk himself, and as weathered as the shell of a walnut.
He told me that he and his partner in this job, Ronald Stevens, had been living like hawks these past three years. They had had their eyrie on the wildest parts of the coast. They had been virtually living like the birds on what they could kill for food, and had scarcely seen a living soul. The essence of the job was secrecy. If the Germans had got wise to it, the game would have been up.
"It was exciting all right," said Bromley, "but the worst of it was that all our friends used to wonder what we were up to - some of them, I think, thought we were scrimshanking. You see, Stevens and I were both in the Army to begin with, but when we were transferred to do this job wo were taken out of uniform, because that would have given the whole show away, and we had to behave as if we wore civilians."
I asked him how this idea of using falcons started, and he replied: "You can scarcely call it an idea. Falcons were used to intercept pigeon messengers at least as long ago as the siege of Jerusalem during the Crusades. The point was it was known by our Intelligence people that the Germans had a very efficient pigeon service; further, that unidentified birds were passing backward and forward over the English coast. It was essential to stop them, and the natural counter was the falcon — the pigeon's natural enemy.
"I suppose we were picked for the job because nobody else knew anything about falconry. It just happened that we were a couple of lunatics who had studied and practised the old sport of hawking as a hobby before the war. And we were asked to take on the job.
"First, we had to find our hawks. We caught wild falcons (passage hawks as they are called), took eyasses — they are young birds — from the eyries on the cliffs. Dangling on a rope over a cliff was a bit tough on the nerves, but it had to be done. Then we trained the birds, and finally we made such progress with practice that we were able to put hawks in the air an hour at a time.
"We knew pretty well if a bird was suspect from Air Ministry reports. And, anyhow, any pigeon coming in or going out to sea from this island was obviously suspicious. We stopped plenty of suspicious birds with strange markings and odd messages. But we never asked questions and we never got any answers. Our job was to stop the pigeons and send anything we found on them (and the dead birds themselves) post-haste to the Air Ministry. And, frankly, after that we preferred to know nothing. Anyhow, you would not expect an espionage message to begin "Dear Hitler," but, now that it is all over, we do know that German marked birds were accounted for.
"Our falcons are not demobilised yet," Bromley concluded, "but there is a talk of disbanding them soon. And then Stevens and I and the falcons think of having a holiday together flying the falcons to some red grouse." — Courtesy of the B.B.C
"THE STRANGEST BATTLE OF THIS WAR"
FALCON PATROL ON BRITAIN'S COAST
By MACDONALD HASTINGS
Here is a story concerning the most bizarre squadron in the Allied air forces in the European War; so bizarre that, until V-E Day, its existence had to be a close secret. It was called officially the No. 2 Interception Unit. And the other day, in a tiny cottage which is the unit's headquarters, I was allowed to peep into the hangars and see inside.
Fifteen penetrating pairs of orange eyes glared back at me. Outlined against the whitewashed walls fifteen menacing shapes huddled on a long perch. Above them flew an ensign on a blue ground, the flag of the Royal Air Force.
The No. 2 Interception Unit was a team of hawks, peregrine falcons. And their war duty was to intercept pigeons suspected of carrying information to the enemy.
For three years they had been flying in secrecy for the Allies. And here, from the heart of the English countryside, from the headquarters of the Falcon (No. 2) Interception Unit, I met one of the two men who flew the hawks in what, surely, was the strangest battle of this war. His name is Bob Bromley; young, handsome, tough as nails, eyes like a hawk himself, and as weathered as the shell of a walnut.
He told me that he and his partner in this job, Ronald Stevens, had been living like hawks these past three years. They had had their eyrie on the wildest parts of the coast. They had been virtually living like the birds on what they could kill for food, and had scarcely seen a living soul. The essence of the job was secrecy. If the Germans had got wise to it, the game would have been up.
"It was exciting all right," said Bromley, "but the worst of it was that all our friends used to wonder what we were up to - some of them, I think, thought we were scrimshanking. You see, Stevens and I were both in the Army to begin with, but when we were transferred to do this job wo were taken out of uniform, because that would have given the whole show away, and we had to behave as if we wore civilians."
I asked him how this idea of using falcons started, and he replied: "You can scarcely call it an idea. Falcons were used to intercept pigeon messengers at least as long ago as the siege of Jerusalem during the Crusades. The point was it was known by our Intelligence people that the Germans had a very efficient pigeon service; further, that unidentified birds were passing backward and forward over the English coast. It was essential to stop them, and the natural counter was the falcon — the pigeon's natural enemy.
"I suppose we were picked for the job because nobody else knew anything about falconry. It just happened that we were a couple of lunatics who had studied and practised the old sport of hawking as a hobby before the war. And we were asked to take on the job.
"First, we had to find our hawks. We caught wild falcons (passage hawks as they are called), took eyasses — they are young birds — from the eyries on the cliffs. Dangling on a rope over a cliff was a bit tough on the nerves, but it had to be done. Then we trained the birds, and finally we made such progress with practice that we were able to put hawks in the air an hour at a time.
"We knew pretty well if a bird was suspect from Air Ministry reports. And, anyhow, any pigeon coming in or going out to sea from this island was obviously suspicious. We stopped plenty of suspicious birds with strange markings and odd messages. But we never asked questions and we never got any answers. Our job was to stop the pigeons and send anything we found on them (and the dead birds themselves) post-haste to the Air Ministry. And, frankly, after that we preferred to know nothing. Anyhow, you would not expect an espionage message to begin "Dear Hitler," but, now that it is all over, we do know that German marked birds were accounted for.
"Our falcons are not demobilised yet," Bromley concluded, "but there is a talk of disbanding them soon. And then Stevens and I and the falcons think of having a holiday together flying the falcons to some red grouse." — Courtesy of the B.B.C
