G.I. Joe (pigeon)

G.I. Joe (March 24, 1943 in Algiers - June 3, 1961 in Detroit) was a pigeon noted for his service in the United States Army Pigeon Service.

During World War II, G.I. Joe saved the lives of the inhabitants of the village of Calvi Vecchia, Italy, and of the British troops occupying it. The village was scheduled to be bombarded by the Allied forces on 18 October 1943, but the message that the British had captured the village, delivered by G.I. Joe, arrived just in time to avoid the bombing. Over a thousand people were saved.[1]

In November 1946, G.I. Joe was presented the Dickin Medal for gallantry by the Lord Mayor of London. After World War II, he was housed at the U.S. Army's Churchill Loft at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey along with twenty-four other heroic pigeons. He died at the Detroit Zoological Gardens at the age of eighteen, and is mounted and on display at the U.S. Army Communications Electronics Museum at Fort Monmouth.[2]

References

  1. ^ Levi, Wendell (1977). The Pigeon. Sumter, S.C.: Levi Publishing Co, Inc. ISBN 0-85390-013-2. 
  2. ^ G.I. Joe Account of G.I. Joe by Otto Meyer, former commander of the US Army Pigeon Service. Retrieved 15 December 2008.
Croix de guerre recipients of World War I
Dickin Medal recipients of World War II
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