As Israel prepared for its 70th Independence Day celebrations, the cooing of pigeons filled the air once again in a secluded dovecot that was once part of a top-secret communications project during the 1948 War of Independence.
Back then, it housed carrier pigeons, which delivered critical messages from the battlefield to Israeli military headquarters after the new state declared independence and was attacked by the armies of Syria, Egypt, Jordan and others.
The recently restored dovecot in Kibbutz Givat Brenner is today an educational center devoted to the winged warriors.
"This is the only thing that was left, and we thought that this is a great place to tell the story," said Tal Ben Nun, of the Society for Preservation of Israel's Heritage Sites.
The Defense Ministry and the Prime Minister's office have allocated some 600,000 shekels ($170,000) to restore the site. Kibbutz Givat Brenner, founded in 1928, lies between Ashdod and Tel Aviv, just north of where Egyptian forces reached after invading from the Sinai in 1948.
Lacking communication devices during the war, the Israeli forces relied on a clandestine network of 68 dovecots spread across the country, and ran "pigeoneer" courses for soldiers, Ben Nun said.
Counting, as did many armies before them, on the pigeons' ability to return to their home dovecot, the Israeli soldiers flew them from the heart of the battle carrying messages written mostly in Morse code.
"It was the only way to communicate, to receive news of what was going on with the troops – whether they succeeded or not, whether they were attacked, if they had wounded or dead, was there a need to send a vehicle to evacuate the wounded. It was all done through the pigeons," said veteran military pigeoneer Shaul Sapir, 90, who still gets emotional when he reminisces about his birds.
"They were nurtured, so much that ... a truck would be brought carrying food for the pigeons, while we remained very hungry," he said.
After being deserted for decades, the restored dovecot in Givat Brenner now houses 60 carrier pigeons, some of which are descendants of those who were there during the war. They are trained daily by volunteers.
"I think it is a duty, a duty, to all the youths and especially those who will be enlisted to the Israeli army's communication or intelligence units, to come and see how we started from nothing, with a pigeon, and what is reached today, with satellites."
