The Long Flight Home

 I read The Long Flight Home, a book by Alan Hlad. The book reminded me of that one time my sister and I returned to our Dad's farm from an outing and found a pigeon sitting in the yard looking exhausted. She threw a towel on it, put it in a box with some seed and some water, and proceeded to figure out whose pigeon it was. Her neighbors had pigeons so she knew a little about it. We found the band on the leg and wrote down the numbers. We called the veterinarian in Parkers Prairie and explained the situation. We put the bird in the box in the dark barn for the night. The next day a guy who knew the owner of the pigeon came to pick it up. The pigeon was way off course. This book is based on some real use of homing pigeons  in 1940 by British pigeon owners. The pigeons had little metal cans tied to their legs so messages from Nazi occupied France could be sent back to England. Each pigeon was put in a box and given a little red parachute before being dropped out of planes. Many pigeons were shot by the Nazi's. Most never returned home. In this story a young man from Maine volunteers to help the RAF. He and his father were crop dusters for the potato fields in Maine and he loves to fly. On his way to volunteer he meets a very angry pilot named Cliff and a woman named Susan. Ollie intervenes when he sees Cliff sexually harass Susan. Cliff has him beat up and thrown in jail. Susan and her grandfather raise pigeons. Before the war started she was studying to be an ornithologist. Susan has a pet pigeon named Duchess that she raised from an egg in a bowl under a desk lamp. Duchess turns out to be a war hero. The story was very interesting. Ollie was a good guy. Cliff was evil but he had moments of empathy now and again.