A man in England has discovered a secret coded message attached to the skeleton of a carrier pigeon from World War II.

David Martin, 71, found the remains while he was renovating his fireplace in Surrey in south east England.

A red capsule containing a coded message was still attached to its leg.

Historians believe the pigeon may have been carrying top secret war information from Nazi Germany to the headquarters of General Montgomery, a British Field Marshal.

Mr Martin told the Daily Mail that he could not believe the discovery.

"We were stunned it was like Christmas had come early. The chimney was full of hundreds of twigs and rubbish and then I started finding various bits of a dead pigeon," he said.

"My wife and I thought it might just be a racing pigeon at first until we spotted the red capsule and our eyes lit up."

Government code-crackers are now trying to decipher the message.

The message contains 27 codes, each made up of combinations of five numbers and letters.

Historians believe it was written by Sergeant W. Stott about 70 years ago and may provide an insight into the war.

More than 250,000 carrier pigeons were used during World War II and were relied on for the transportation of secret messages.

"I can’t wait to find out what is in the hidden message. We are based near Monty’s old headquarters so it could have been a secret message from him," said Mr Martin.

"I hope it is something. It will be amazing if we discover an unknown detail from such an important part of British history."

Source:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2012/11/02/10/17/man-finds-pigeon-with-secret-message-from-wwii