Overdue kudos for winged communicators

April 10, 2009 - 7:54 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: History and Culture, Israeliness, Politics, Technology, War 

Soldiers with pigeonsAfter reports surfaced that Hezbollah had succeeded in eavesdropping on IDF soldiers talking on their cell phones during the Second Lebanon War, the army began investing heavily in creating its own proprietary, super-secure cellular network, dubbed Afik Rahav (“Wide Channel”).

But even in the “resounding success” of the latest round of military action against our enemies, this past winter’s Gaza operation against Hamas, was marked by some cellular communication backfirings, as both the IDF and Hamas attempted to rile up the general public on the opposite side by placing calls to random numbers.

But back in the day, communications among and with forces in the field were even trickier. Pre-state Zionist military forces used the low-tech method of carrier pigeons to get messages around the land, and recent Ha’aretz coverage of the aviary units has succeeded in prompting the IDF to honor its communications-minded predecessors.

In December, the newspaper reported that the Haganah’s dovecote at Kibbutz Givat Brenner was in danger of being destroyed and petitioned to preserve it, following Shaul Sapir, 81, who delivered the Haganah’s pigeons, and Aharon Landsman, 73, who trained them, as they visited the dovecote. This would have been a shame, since the Tzrifin base’s “monument to the unknown pigeon” (for real) was retired long ago, with few testaments remaining to remind us of the once-crucial section, which was incorporated into the IDF in the Fifties.

Then, a few weeks ago, the paper reported with glee that amid great fanfare and top-brass attendance,

Pigeon trainers who dispatched carrier pigeons for the Palmach and Haganah, the Yishuv’s military forces, were invited to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Israel Defense Forces Teleprocessing Branch at Tel Aviv University….

Senior Field Commander Major General Ami Shafran spoke glowingly of the pigeon corps, giving respect where it was finally due:

“The pigeon trainers from kibbutzim Ramat Rachel, Beit Hashita, Mishmar Hashiva and Negba, and from the dovecote at Givat Brenner, are some of those who laid down the [nation's] infrastructure, and they are a part of the strong foundation on which our present capabilities were built.”

Image courtesy Copper Kettle from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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