Winged warriors
The use of carrier pigeons or carrier pigeons was a widely used means of communication in the early 20th century.
Several curious events are also associated with the Sea Post Pigeon Station. A certain Miķelis Ozols was caught cheating - he was paid well for shooting hawks near the station, and the man managed to show chicken legs instead of the predators' claws.
The first experiments with birds began in the spring of 1898. The winged messengers were taken and released from the deck of a ship 20 miles from the coast. The results were poor - out of 20 pigeons, nine returned, three of them having lost the "important papers" hanging around their necks. For the failure and the loss of the crown property (one pigeon was valued at 2.68 rubles), Lieutenant Captain Olimp Kvastsova was transferred to the Sveaborg fortress. As it turned out later, spring had encouraged some of those sent on a combat mission to move to the attics of townspeople's houses to free dovecotes. In the summer of 1901, the experiments continued, releasing the birds from ships in the Danzig port raid. This time, Russian diplomats had to explain themselves, because for some reason the Prussians expressed indignation at such a peculiar activity of the Russian Navy in German territorial waters with the peaceful planes of the Liepāja fortress. In February 1904, the Liepāja port raid was covered with smoke from the warships of the 2nd Pacific Squadron. 200 pigeons were “commanded” from the station ships to the places of naval battles in the Korean and Japanese seas. On November 5, when the cruiser Oleg was in the departing armada 200 miles from Liepāja, the propeller broke. The commander, Captain 2nd Rank Otto Richter, not believing in the miracle, nevertheless ordered five pigeons to be released from the deck at 2 pm with a dispatch about the keza. On the morning of November 6, at 4 am, the message carried by two pigeons was on the desk of the commander of the Liepāja base, Admiral Ireckas. Pigeons from the Liepāja station also participated in the large maneuvers of the Russian Baltic Fleet in the summer of 1907. For example, 25 pigeons were released from the minelayers Ukrainec, Gaidamak and Vsadņik 30 miles from the coast, seven of which disappeared. The largest batch of pigeons - 197 were placed on the transport ship Angāra and released five by five from cages 50 miles away. 13 pigeons did not return. Carrier pigeons were used quite successfully until 1914 in communications from Liepāja with Russian coastal artillery batteries in what is now Hiiumaa and Saaremaa.
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Pigeon post sea station in Karosta
The former naval pigeon station No.2 - actually a breeding station - is located in Karosta, Pulkveža Brieža iela 6. It was built between 1899 and 1900 and was intended to house about 450 carrier pigeons - winged soldiers. In later years, the building was converted into apartments, so that only the red brick volume of the building remains. The other post pigeon station, No 1, which has not survived, was intended for the use of 750 ground troops and was located at the northern end of Atmodas Boulevard.
The carrier pigeons were a simple, fast and reliable way to ensure communication between the shore and ships at sea. Although the radio telegraph, as a modern communication device, was already widely used at that time, the use of pigeons was considered safer - an enemy could only intercept a message by intercepting the carrier pigeon itself. The carrier pigeons moved at an average speed of 60 km per hour, but in favourable wind conditions they could move at speeds of up to 100 km per hour. Pigeons had to be specially prepared and trained, so handling them required care and patience. The homing pigeon's communication worked through the birds' ability to return to their home cage. When the bird was transferred to another location - a pigeon station, release and release point - and released with a message capsule, the little messenger returned to its home cage. In order to ensure communication between the two pigeon stations, it was necessary to keep a certain number of birds in each, which had grown up in the correspondent's communication, or carrier pigeon, station. Each year the pigeons were involved in various manoeuvres and competitions. Also after Latvia's independence, from 1920 to 1940, an army carrier pigeon station was located in Liepāja for the Latvian Army's Courland Division, which was able to communicate with both Riga and Daugavpils. During the inter-war period, stray communication pigeons from Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Finland and Estonia also wandered into Latvian territory. Pigeons from Latvia were also suddenly found in neighbouring countries.
The building has been rebuilt several times over the years and is now a residential building. But the distinctive shape of the building, made of the red bricks characteristic of the old buildings of the Karosta, is still clearly visible from the outside.
