The Long Flight Home

by Alan Hlad

Be an egg, Susan thought. One could be soft with fear inside, but hard as slate outside. It was her grandfather’s phrase of affirmation, spoken seldom, but at the times she needed them most.

a homing pigeon can travel distances of up to six hundred miles per day, fly at speeds of seventy miles per hour, and reach altitudes as high as thirty-five thousand feet.” Susan looked at Ollie. “At that height, Ollie, the temperature would be thirty-five degrees below zero, and a pilot would need a heated suit and oxygen.”

“In the Great War, a pigeon named Cher Ami saved the lives of almost two hundred Allied troops trapped behind enemy lines without food or ammunition. The day before, there had been five hundred men.”

“Cher Ami was the last remaining pigeon, the others shot down by machine-gun fire. With their last desperate message for help placed in the canister attached to Cher Ami’s leg, the bird took flight. As she flew out of the bunker, a rain of bullets shot her down. But she somehow managed to get back in the air and fly to headquarters.” Susan lightly poked Ollie in the chest. “Cher Ami had been shot through the breast.” Susan then pointed to Ollie’s cheek. “She was also blinded in one eye.” Ollie felt Susan nudge his boot with her foot. “And her leg was hanging by a tendon.” Susan stroked Duchess’s head. “But she made it home and saved the lives of two hundred men.”

Ollie leaned in. “What else do you love about them?” “Affectionate—both parents raise their nestlings,” Susan said. “They’re exquisite, with spectacular colors and patterns. I adore their cooing, which, in my opinion, is even more soothing than a cat’s purr. They walk with an endearing waddle. And their flight is quite graceful.” She placed her hands on the table. “But what I admire most is their devotion to family. They’ll go to great lengths to find their way home.”

Susan couldn’t imagine her pigeons being stuffed like blueprints into tubes. They weren’t pieces of paper to protect from being wrinkled. They were pigeons. Her beautiful, intelligent, loyal pigeons. These devoted animals could possibly be Britain’s only insight into what the enemy was doing across the Channel, and they were being treated like second-class mail. She wanted to stomp on the tubes, rip them apart, and burn them in her grandfather’s fireplace.

It was a labor of love to write this book. I will forever be inspired by the resiliency of the British people, who endured eight months of relentless bombing—from September 1940 to May 1941—which resulted in the deaths of 43,000 civilians. It is my hope that this story will honor the men, women, and children who perished in the Blitz.