Marie and I made our long-awaited trip to the International Spy Museum this morning. Apparently, Washington DC is home to more spies than any other city on earth, a fact which I must admit rather surprised me. However, I shall henceforth be on the look-out for secret agents at all times and, as a result of our hour-long Operation Spy training, now know to be extra suspicious of painters carrying ladders or anyone sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper (especially if they have a briefcase with them), and to beware of tree stumps and dog poo (take care, they could contain a homing device).
I have to confess that neither Marie nor I did particularly well on the Operation Spy mission - our team lacked the necessary skills to crack the safe where a missing nuclear trigger was located, had significant difficulty tuning into the listening devices, and were, quite frankly, less than impressive at locating our suspect on the hotel CCTV system. In fact, I found the whole mission rather baffling, which really depressed me as I've always rather fancied myself as a one of those mysterious ladies with perfectly-set hair who would have been hand-picked to work at Bletchley Park had I been born in the right era (the official accounts always mention the linguists along with the along with the chess champions and the Polish mathematicians).
However, I soon cheered up when we came upon the Pigeon Room - definitely the highlight of the museum. The first exhibit began with the immortal line: "Since the earliest days of espionage, homing pigeons have been a spy's best friend" and got progressively better as we toured the display. Did you know that pigeons were trained not only to carry secret messages, but were also given cameras which took reconnaissance photos as they flew over enemy lines? Or that, amazingly, over 95% of the 'hundreds of thousands' of pigeons sent through enemy fire during both world wars completed their missions? Pigeon espionage. Certainly gives new meaning to a 'nest of spies'...
The indisputable pigeon hero of all time was a World War One veteran named Cher Ami (worth clicking through here just for the musical accompaniment), a heroic carrier pigeon who, despite horrific injuries sustained under enemy fire, flew 25 miles in 25 minutes to deliver a message and save 194 lives of American troops in danger from their own 'friendly fire' artillery (plus ça change). The wonderfully understated note from the commander in the field read: "We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven's sake, stop it."
Although close to death and having lost a leg, Cher Ami was patched up by the army medics, who apparently even carved a little wooden leg for him, and he returned in a blaze of glory to the USA. Having been awarded the Croix de Guerre, with palm for heroic service, his departure was personally overseen by General Pershing, overall American Commander in Europe. (I swear this is true). Sadly, Cher Ami died of his wounds in June 1919. The military messenger was then 'mounted by a taxidermist and donated to the Smithsonian', where he now stands proudly on one-legged display at the National Museum of American History, alongside a dog called Sergeant Stubby, the most decorated dog of the First World War and 'the only dog to be promoted to the rank of sergeant through combat'. I promise I am not making this up. Unfortunately, this museum is currently undergoing renovation, but you can see Cher Ami here (I thought it best not to paste the photo of our stuffed soldier as it actually made me feel rather sick, as did the accompanying description of his war wounds). Roll on October 2008, I shall be first in line when the museum reopens...
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