This is one of the most basic forms of postal delivery systems and was widely used before today’s postal and courier services were fully established. Through out the years the main use for postal pigeons had been during war to deliver messages safely and quickly.

Pigeon post was widely used in wars for many years because other forms of message delivery were not reliable or in many cases not safe. Things like telegraph posts would have the lines cut so preventing messages from getting through, making it unreliable. As for standard delivery the messages being delivered often held important information so the people delivering it could be harmed or even killed for the enemy to gain it. This made post pigeons a great way of delivering important messages because they were extremely quick and were less likely to be caught. During the First World War there was a French carrier pigeon that was awarded a medal for bravery after delivering a message that saved over 200 soldiers. The pigeon was called Cher Ami and delivered the message even though it had been shot through the breast so was awarded the medal for that and safely delivering over 12 messages.

During the Second World War there were over 250,000 carrier pigeons used and after the war 32 of these pigeons were awarded with the Dickens Medal. The Dickens Medal is the highest honours of medal that any animal can be awarded in most cases given for bravery. These pigeons were given these medals for providing the army with a valuable service through out the war delivering important messages fast and efficiently. They were seen as brave because they were expected to travel through sometimes extremely dangerous areas and were often shot at by the enemy, yet still delivered the messages.

In France the service of carrier pigeons was officially ended for military purposes in 1871 the pigeons that were still alive were sold as racing pigeons. In England the secret defence services still believed that carrier pigeons could still be useful during war. This meant that they had a pigeon fancier keep around 50 carrier pigeons in case they were ever needed; they kept some of these pigeons right up until 1950. It was after this that nearly all carrier pigeons became racing pigeons and were owned purely by civilians through out the world.

This was a very basic form of message delivery but was the start of the development of other forms of more advanced delivery services that you see today. From this there have been express courier delivery services introduced through out the world such as same day and 24 hour services.