A true story of when in the 1954-55 Radio Free Europe and Crusade for Freedom used a "Freedom Pigeon" to fight Communism.
As the story goes, a German racing pigeon was to fly from Munich in a race back to her home base of Klautzenbach, near Nuremberg. She got lost and landed in Pilzen, Czechoslovakia. A pigeon fancier found her, attached a message for Radio Free Europe to her leg, and let her go. She flew back to Klautzenbach. Her owner found the note and notified RFE; the pigeon and message were given to RFE. "Leaping Lena" became her nickname. The message she carried was
We plead with you not to slow down in the fight against Communism because Communism must be destroyed. We beg for a speedy liberation from the power of the Kremlin and the establishment of a United States of Europe. We listen to your broadcasts. They present an entirely true picture of life behind the Iron Curtain. We would like you to tell us how we can combat "Bolshevism" and the tyrannical dictatorship existing here. We are taking every opportunity to work against the regime and do everything in our power to sabotage it.
Unbowed Pilsen
"Leaping Lena" arrived in the United States on August 1, 1954, when four World War II hero pigeons from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and 15 news photographers greeted her as a V.I.P. (Very Important Pigeon). Fort Monmouth was the site of the U.S. Army Signal Corps Pigeon Breeding and Training Center. The American Racing Pigeon Union and the International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers sponsored her arrival.
One thousand American pigeons released in her honor carried a copy of the message to President Dwight Eisenhower and Henry Ford II, president of the Crusade for Freedom.
Newspaper headlines included "Star Crusader for Radio Arrives in Nation" and "Lena, Pigeon Who Crashed Curtain, Gets Big Ovation." One photograph carried the caption: "The bird won honorary pigeonship in the United States after flying an anti-Communist message over the iron curtain." Another read, "Pigeon of Pilsen on Mission in the US." One New YorkTimes headline was "Coos and Kudos to Greet 'Anti-Red" Pigeon Who Flew Message Through Iron Curtain." One newspaper reporter not so kindly described her as "a rather drab looking expanse of feathers resembling any plump pigeon in any park."
After three weeks of quarantine at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Clifton, New Jersey, "Leaping Lena" reportedly then went on a press tour, helping to raise funds for Radio Free Europe in the 1954-1955 Crusade campaign. She was the "model for an insignia to be used in the fund drive to support Radio Free Europe broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain" and presumably retired in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
One of the four World War II hero pigeons was her mate, but, unfortunately, "Leaping Lena's" fate in the United States is not known. Possibly, she was given to a zoo, according to a history of the U.S. Army Signal Corps:
The advent of the electronics age brought about the demise of one of the Signal Corps' oldest forms of communications, pigeons. The Army's birds, like horses and mules before them, had fallen victim to progress. Consequently, the Signal Corps closed the Pigeon Breeding and Training Branch (formerly Center) at Fort Monmouth on May 1, 1957. The Corps sold its birds to the public except for the remaining war heroes, such as G.I. Joe, which it was presented to zoos around the country.
For more information
Rebecca Robbins Raines. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army
Signal Corps. http://www.history.army.mil/books/30-17/Front.htm#toc
Photograph of Lena is courtesy of RFE/RL, Inc.
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