Monday, April 8, 2019

Carrier Pidgeon Finds Lieutenant on Vacation at the Shore, Delivers Message of Stranded Navy Airman, April 8, 1919

From The Daily Times, Wilson, N.C., April 8, 1919

Carrier Pigeon Rescue

Atlantic City, N.J., April 6—A blue carrier pigeon was instrumental in saving the life of Ensign Finch, a navy airman adrift in a flying boat without fuel in a rough sea Saturday night, while Judge Joseph Buffington of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Pennsylvania, and his cousin, Lieut. Matthew Taylor, late commander of land forces afloat in the naval district from Cape Hatteras, were supporting actors in one of the most remarkable rescues ever made off the South Jersey coast.

William Lydall of Toronto was seated in his beach front room at a hotel late Saturday night when an exhausted carrier pigeon fluttered in through an open window. Judge Buffington and Lieutenant Taylor, found a small cylinder of aluminum about an inch in length clamped to its leg. Upon a piece of paper not much bigger than a special delivery stamp in the tiny receptacle was this message of appeal from the sea:

“Down 10 miles west of submarine chaser at 4:15 p.m. no gas. Ensign Finch.”

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