Tommy was given the Dickin medal - the animal version of the Victoria Cross.
The story began when William Brockbank, who lived at Queen Street, Dalton, entered Tommy in a race from Christchurch on the south coast. A freak storm blew him off course and he landed, exhausted, in occupied Holland.
Holland had been cleansed of its racing pigeon stock by the Gestapo, fearful of the birds' renowned capabilities as messengers.
Tommy was found by a resistance sympathiser, who handed him over to Dick Drijver, a member of the Dutch Resistance. He knew from the bird's leg ring that he was English. He nursed the pigeon, which he named Tommy, back to fitness before letting him fly with a tiny aluminium cannister attached to his leg containing information about a munitions build-up at a factory near Amsterdam.