Utah native Beesley, 84, got his first birds from a beloved uncle at age 5 while temporarily living in California and was racing pigeons by the time he was 13. During World War II, his assignment to the 282 Signal Pigeon Company in the U.S. Army sent him to the European theater. In addition to being able to work with his beloved birds, the assignment kept him from combat.

Beesley's passion for pigeons is so great he even had to be pulled away from building a loft for his birds to marry Rae, his wife of 63 years. Together they have seven children, 24 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, not to mention the thousands of pigeons that have called the Beesley loft home for the past six decades.

And during two bouts with cancer (prostate and colon), the birds provided Beesley with peace and hope.

"They put regimen in my life," he said while watching 24 young birds from his loft returning from a 70-mile training flight. "They have always given me something to look forward to. It seems like just when the racing season is over the shows start. They keep me going."

About the time he got into racing pigeons in the mid-1930s, Beesley was invited to attend the BYU-Utah football game in Provo with Ray King - a sportswriter for The Salt Lake Tribune who eventually became his uncle.

At that time, the Tribune used pigeons to help get news to the office in Salt Lake City from around the state. The paper had a loft of pigeons on the roof of its building from 1936 to 1946.

"I got to help carry the pigeons to be released with the halftime score," Beesley said. "I thought I was pretty important."

Paratrooper pigeons

Beesley was assigned to an anti-tank battalion after Army basic training, but a superior in 1943 heard he had pigeons at home in Utah and had him sent to Camp Crowder in Missouri.

At Crowder, home of the Signal Corps Pigeon Breeding and Training Center, Beesley worked with birds in preparation for an eventual move to England and the European Theater during World War II.

He remembers boarding a ship with as many as 300 birds for the haul across the North Atlantic.

"We were attacked by submarines and got caught in a horrible storm. When we went to check the birds after the storm, more than half of them were dead," he said.

He landed safely in Europe and ended up spending time in France, Germany and England taking care of pigeons as part of the 282 Signal Pigeon Company.

"The birds were faster than a car and more secure than the radio," Beesley said.

Sometimes the pigeons were dropped behind enemy lines via a parachute attached to a cylinder holding up to six birds. The birds carried vital information about supply needs and troop movement. Several stories from World War II credit pigeons with saving the lives of thousands of American and English soldiers.

The English used pigeons as messengers more than the Americans did, but the Germans reportedly had twice as many birds as all the Allies.

Sometimes enemy pigeons were captured. Beesley remembers one case when a German soldier was asked where a specific pigeon homed to and the answer was Adolf Hitler's headquarters in Berlin.

"My sergeant put a couple of aspirin in the capsule with a note that told Hitler to take them and release the bird," he said.

Beesley was also placed in charge of lofts - large pigeon coops - that had been captured from the Germans.

Back home

Beesley was sent home in the spring of 1945 to begin preparing to take pigeons to the Pacific Theater. On the boat trip back to the U.S., he heard about the surrender of the Germans.

During a short leave before reporting to South Carolina for training on his Pacific duty, Beesley was in the middle of building a loft for some pigeons he managed to send home from Belgium when Rae had to ask him to stop.

"I told him the bishop was coming to marry us and it was time for him to change into his uniform," she said. "It seems like we have always had something going on with pigeons."

Japan surrendered before Beesley was sent to the Pacific and he returned home, released from his military duty.

He used that pair of birds he brought from Belgium to start the Beesley strain of pigeons, which became quite popular in the United States. He has maintained a loft through the years, racing his birds, pulling in numerous trophies and awards and selling some of his stock. His birds are so popular that he even had one stolen. Beesley also has been asked to talk at conferences on pigeon racing and has served as a judge at pigeon shows.

"I've sold birds to buyers in Belgium, Japan, Taiwan and Hawaii and to people in lots of other states," he said.

Beesley, whose voice has turned gruff due to medication but whose touch is still gentle, has roughly 75 birds currently in his loft and is in the middle of the fall young bird season with the Golden Spike Racing Club. The races are held on Saturdays, but he spends time with his birds every day, either driving them to specified release sites or waiting for them to arrive from the training flights when somebody else drops them off.

Their return has never failed to bring a smile to his face - with the exception of race day when the birds dawdle outside the loft and fail to register their return on his timer.

"It's kind of exciting to see them come in," he said. "I don't like it when they hang around and don't go in the loft, though. It makes me nervous."

Brett Prettyman writes about recreation and the outdoors. Contact him at brettp@sltrib.com or 801-257-8902.

Pigeon racing primer

» Pigeons have been used as message carriers for centuries, but the sport of pigeon racing didn't arise until the 1800s. By the late 1800s, there were regularly conducted competitions in the United States, Belgium, Holland and Great Britain.

» The homing pigeon is a specifically bred variety, unlike the feral pigeons that plague most cities. Some homing pigeons are pedigreed and sell for as much as $250,000.

» Two race seasons are usually conducted every year. Birds bred in any given year are raced in the late summer and fall of that year in a series of races called "young bird races." These races usually start from distances of 100 miles and extend out to 300 miles. The other season is in the spring and early summer, when all birds hatched in preceding years are allowed to compete. These races usually begin at 100 miles and may go to 600 miles or more.

» Before race season, measurements are made from the entrance to each owner's loft to the nearest roadway, then to the nearest intersection. These measurements are sent to a survey company. The exact distance (to three decimal points) from the entryway at the loft to each release point is computed. In other words, each loft is flying a different distance. For example, in a 100-mile race, one loft's team of birds may fly 97.652 miles from the release point while a competitor's may fly 110.925 miles.

» Based on distance and arrival time at the home roost, the bird with the fastest yards per minute, not the first bird home, wins the race.

» There are two primary national racing pigeon organizations. The International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers (IF) is the oldest, with approximately 3,500 members. It is geographically concentrated on the East Coast but has clubs in the other sections of the country. It allows clubs to develop their own sets of local race rules. The American Racing Pigeon Union (AU) is younger, with more than 9,000 members in all 50 states. The AU's philosophy is more centered on uniform race rules under which all of its members participate.

Source: Racing Pigeon Digest, www.racingpigeondigest.com