Four of the Beaufighter's bombers could have been frozen to death in the ocean when the plane crashed without the pigeon Winkie.

In the early 1940s, about 2,000 bird lovers in England donated their pigeons to the army for the postage task. A series of fixed pigeons are stationed at the army and air bases, and many mobile bird cages are for communication. One of such birds saved the life of a bomber crew in distress at sea.

The British Air Force then used airplanes to drop containers of parachute pigeons for resistance forces in the Netherlands, Belgium and France. On February 3, 1942, a Beaufighter bomber from the British Air Force returned after completing such a mission to drop pigeons. However, the aircraft crashed into the sea about 160 km from the shore due to heavy damage due to enemy fire.

The four crew members exited the plane safely, but drifted in the frigid waters with no way of communicating with the base to announce their exact location. The Winkie dove they carried on the plane was the last hope.

The pilots released Winkie to fly it back to the mainland, hoping someone would find it and inform the British Air Force. The little bird did not let them down, when they crossed a distance of nearly 200 km, returning to the old barn in Broughty Frerry, on the outskirts of Dundee, Scotland.

George Ross, the former owner of Winkie, found it exhausted and greasy, so immediately notified the nearby Leuchars base.

Although Winkie did not carry a message at her feet, the British Air Force was able to determine the location of the crashed plane by calculating the time difference between the time the plane crashed and the time Winkie arrived at the barn, as well as the wind direction and influence. of oil with the bird's ability to fly.

Rescuers discovered and rescued the Beaufighter crew after just 15 minutes of departure. "These soldiers would have died in the cold sea if the pigeon did not come home," said Elaine Pendlebury, a veterinarian in London.

Crew members held a grand feast in honor of Winkie after returning to base. On December 2, 1943, Winkie and two other birds, Tyke and White Vision, were awarded the Dickin Medal for achievement in delivering messages in extremely difficult circumstances, contributing to the effort to rescue the air crew.

After Winkie died, the owner donated his body and the Dickin medal to the Dundee Art Gallery.