مارتن لیدر هاندلر « الحمام الزاجل » لنقل صور الحرب ! ، مجلة فن التصوير اللبنانية _ع٨

Martin Leder Handler "Hosting Pigeons" to convey the images of war!

Long before the Allied landings on the Mande beach in northern France, on the 6th of June 19440, a staff member of the Planning Department of the United Press Agency office in London was wondering how to obtain press photographs of the landing and send them promptly to London. To be distributed from there to the rest of the world, that day, he had the idea of ​​using pigeons - in the manner of the carrier pigeon - so did this experience bear fruit or not...

Martin Leder Handler, better known as Marty, joined the Associated Press in 1935 in New York as a part-time reporter, and that was at the beginning of the spread of the photographic distribution network by sending them by wire. In early 1936, the agency contracted with him on a full-time basis. When I assigned him to deliver the photos to the Daily News newspaper in New York, he would later become a photo mailer and an assistant mixing chemicals in the darkroom. In addition to doing these jobs - he was entrusted with the process of covering emergency events such as fires and murders in the event that photographers from the imaging device were not available. These tasks gave him invaluable experience and prompted him to buy a camera measuring 4 by 5 inches, of the second degree - this camera was used until the late The fifties as a press camera - and then Leder Handler started photographing the events without being commissioned by the agency, which he knew would benefit from the publication of the photos he was taking. He was selecting the shots he wanted to shoot. With the accession of the United States to the Allies in World War II, "Marty" enlisted in the army, after spending two years in the United States and the Pacific region, then he was enrolled in the officer's school and held the rank of second lieutenant in the Signal Corps - affiliated with the Fourth Division on the Normandy landings on the sixth of June , Jun 1944 In this period, and in the face of the urgent need to deliver pictures or films of the landing, to London in a secret way that the Germans could not detect, the idea arose of using pigeons. Twelve photographers with this task. For the Fourth Infantry Division, which was responsible for the army's photography mission, and then began training with the army that culminated in the invasion on a beach.
The Germans were able to detect the operation and arrest the pigeons, as a result of the delay in the invasion. Copies of German newspapers were later found, and the pictures taken by Martin Leder Handler had been published on their front pages with his name next to them. But despite all these precautions, they provided twenty-four pigeons. And with the necessary equipment of films and special belts to attach them to the bathroom - the films were wrapped in turn with rectangles the size of a cigar - and many precautions were taken so that the sent materials would not be damaged in addition to possible effort
And moved on. Marty, after that from France to Belgium and the Netherlands, and then to Germany, until he was discharged from the army in late 1945, after spending five years in military service, and in the year 1947, and after a year and a half in the dark room, he became, Marty, a photographer in a device Photography of the United Press Agency in New York, and since then he has been working at night for twenty-one years, during which he has covered all kinds of sports and events of the United Nations, in addition to all the various night activities. Marni has traveled on many missions to Canada and South America. In 1968, he shifted to day work to cover many similar tasks. Marty, the ultimate pleasure professionally has been in capturing the pinnacle of action, whenever possible, waiting for the right moment to capture the action in its fullest. And that moment had to happen. This is his style of work! Today, Marty bears the title. Old Dove, a nickname his colleagues endeared him to and he still works in New York with the same agency, and gets a lot of admiration for the photos he produces, but it's now for less.
Today, Martin Leder Handler reaches the age of sixty-five, and he hopes that the work will continue for a few more years before he turns his back on work and steps down in retirement, and thus he has spent working with the United Press Agency for a period of 47 years.