united states navy aviators maintained 12 pigeon stations in france with a total inventory of 1,508 pigeons when the war ended. pigeons were carried in airplanes to rapidly return messages to these stations; and 829 birds flew in 10,995 wartime aircraft patrols. airmen of the 230 patrols with messages entrusted to pigeons threw the message-carrying pigeon either up or down, depending on the type of aircraft, to keep the pigeon out of the propeller and away from airflow toward the aircraft wings and struts. eleven of the thrown pigeons went missing in action, but the remaining 219 messages were delivered successfully.