Better late than never I guess?
Quote
In September, a couple out for a stroll in the eastern French Alsace region, came across a tiny aluminum capsule in a field.
Inside was the message, written in barely legible German on a kind of tracing paper.
The message appears to carry the date 1910, or 1916.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fichef.bbci.co.uk%2Fnews%2F800%2Fcpsprodpb%2F13C2E%2Fproduction%2F_115324908_gettyimages-1229534614.jpg&hash=f3e7372a027abe2e23dff701631e6795a435b634)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54870322
Maybe now Speckled Jim can finally rest in peace. :peace:
The story doesn't even attempt to tell us what the note says?? Just a mention of 'maneuvers' :/
Quote from: Gusington on November 12, 2020, 08:52:13 PM
The story doesn't even attempt to tell us what the note says?? Just a mention of 'maneuvers' :/
After a hundred years the pigeon probably learned to write pigeon and that can be hard to read.
:-[
Quote from: Gusington on November 12, 2020, 08:52:13 PM
The story doesn't even attempt to tell us what the note says?? Just a mention of 'maneuvers' :/
It's classified.
:buck2:
The thing I can't understand is why the Germans were asking for help from a pigeon? What was he supposed to do, crap on the enemy? And don't they know.... pigeons can't read. :o
That's an interesting find. The note details what seems to be an exercise.
I can't find a "Bischweier" around Colmar, but there is a Bischwihr.
Rough translation: 3rd battalion, 171st Infantry Regiment withdraws through Colmar and Ingersheim (at the time in German Alsace-Lorraine, some 15-20 miles from the border with France). The enemy follows 9th Company on the far left. Platoon/detachment Potthoff is fired at when it reaches the western edge of the exercise ground. Platoon/detachment Potthoff takes fire and retreats after a while. In the Fecht (a river flowing through Ingersheim) forest, half a platoon/detachment was knocked out. Platoon/group Potthoff retreats after having suffered serious losses, signed by a Gänsbert from 9th Company, 171st Infantry Regiment.
The 171st Infantry Regiment was fighting in the Aisne sector in July 1916, as part of the 115th Infantry Division, prior to the moving to the Eastern Front with the rest of the division. That makes it most likely that this concerns a pre-war exercise in 1910.
Thanks for the translation ComradeP O0
ComradeP single handedly turned this thread around! It being a pre-war exercise makes it that much more interesting.