MI 5 files have been opened to reveal an old secret: the planned use of Homing Pigeons as weapons of mass destruction. Thousands were to be armed with small bombs, perhaps carrying bacterial agents, and were trained to attack enemy positions and return home. For some reason the project did not get off the ground,as it were.
This is old hat in the Merse. Papers recently released by Fishwick Special Branch reveal a previous top secret project code named 'Reiver Revenge X' dreamed up by a shadowy organisation, long since disbanded, Merse Intelligence 7 (MI7)Under the control of a legendary operative Mike 'Mad Cap' O'Flaherty. The details are not known but the project was abandoned for purely practical reasons as the pigeons who were Super Homers declined to find their target and homed in on their Headquarters instead. Fortunately the bomblets were practice ones and no harm was done.
O'Flaherty was punished by being posted to Spittal and is the only known Intelligence Agent to be awarded a posthumous MBE whilst still alive. This was thought to be some kind of ponderous joke by the then PM Churchill. O'Flaherty was said to be quite pleased as he felt that an MBE might destroy his street cred with the IRA General Command (He was on secondment to MI7 for the duration of the war)
