The other week I told how a squirrel that bombed Berlin during the Second World War ended up living in Almondbury.

Now the staff at Huddersfield Local History Library have come up with an even better animals-at-war story, about the pigeon trained by a Paddock man that saved the four man crew of a downed aircraft in the Middle East.

Old friend Chris Marsden, chairman of Huddersfield Civic Society, told me about the squirrel called Fortnum who flew with an RAF flight lieutenant on bombing raids over Berlin.

It was eventually retired and went to live in a country house at Almondbury.

But the story unearthed at the library throws new light on a branch of the armed forces that seems to have been long forgotten: the Pigeon Service of the Royal Corps of Signals.

A report in the Huddersfield Weekly Examiner of August 14, 1943 records: “During the Battle of El Alamein the highlandDivision made great use of pigeons. Soldiers who had laughed when ordered to carry a pigeon loft round with them, were later on delighted to use pigeons.”

The bird that saved lives was trained by Flight Sergeant Douglas Kendall,the son of Alfred Kendall, licensee of the Angel Hotel at Paddock Head.

Douglas was former president of the Longwood Homing Society before he volunteered to serve early in the war.

A little known fact is that RAF planes in the Middle East, flying up to100 missions a day, carried homing pigeons.

On this occasion, a Baltimore light attack bomber returning from reconnaissance sent an SOS as its engines failed over the sea.

Rescue planes searched the area for four and a half hours but found nothing and it was feared the crew had gone down with their aircraft.

A few hours later, the pigeon flew into its loft with the message that the crew were safe and in a life-raft and gave the accurate co-ordinates of their location.

The report said: “A rescue launch found the crew and brought them safely ashore. This was the first time in the Middle East that a pigeon has saved the crew of a crashed plane.”

Another of Douglas Kendall’s birds also distinguished itself when it carried an important message 500 miles through dust storms and over waterlesscountry.

“This performance is unequalled,” the report said.

Almost 40 years ago, the Examiner sent me on a trip to Europe with a lorry load of birds.

I was one of the team that went with two wagons carrying pigeons taking part in a cross Channel race.

This was my first — and only — brush with this noble breed of feathered friends.

We collected pallets of pigeons from Huddersfield and Wakefield before driving to Poole, crossing by ferry to Cherbourg in a Force 10 gale — I was sick the entire time — and driving to Nantes in the south of Brittany.

I remember a lovely square where we had to wait a couple of days until we got a sunny morning when we could release the birds to fly home.

It was a brilliant experience but I never knew the history of the sport or how pigeons have helped their owners through the ages.

I’ve turned to the Royal Pigeon Racing website for the facts.

They were used as messengers in Ancient Egypt 3,000 years ago, carried Olympic Games results to bookies in Ancient Greece, and were part of the postal service of Ancient Rome.

France was still using them to carry post in the 19thcentury and in 1870 there was a carrier pigeon service between London and Paris.

The best of the breed were used extensively in both world wars.

Almost a quarter of a million birds served with the military and home defences during the Second World War.

Even the code breakers at Bletchley Park used them and they were dropped by parachute in containers to Resistance fighters in France, Belgium and Holland.

During WWII, the Dickin Medal — known as the animal VC — was awarded for outstanding service. Of the 53 medals presented, 32 went to pigeons.