They earned their wings by rescuing thousands of Allied soldiers and now they have earned their owner a substantial windfall.

Oil paintings celebrating war-time pigeons fetched £10,600 at a Bonhams auction this afternoon after being sold by Jack Lovell from Worcester Park.

Mr Lovell, 92, a pigeon breeder for eight decades, assembled a crack squad of feathered fighting machines for the British secret service during World War II.

He was approached by MI5 in 1939 to supply his best birds for active duty.

They would repeatedly dodge bullets and enemy falcons to bring back messages from French Resistance fighters and footage of V1 flying bombs being built in German factories.

Mr Lovell told the Sutton Guardian: "I couldn't talk about what my pigeons were doing until a couple of years ago because of the Official Secrets Act.

"They must have saved thousands of lives. I didn't lose a single one, they were so well trained.

"The rewards were far better than any from pigeon racing, just knowing my birds were being used like that."

The eight avian artworks, which Mr Lovell wanted to pass on to future generations, depict champion pigeons owned by Jule Janssen, the doyen of Belgium fanciers.

They were produced by J Baldaus, the French painter, and British artist Edward Henry Windred.

Their original estimate was between £2,800 and £4,300.

During the Second World War nearly 250,000 pigeons were deployed by the army, the RAF and the Civil Defence Services as racing was stopped around the country.

A total of 33 homing pigeons were awarded the Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

Mr Lovell owned one of the recipients, Beach Comber, who brought the first news of Canadian soldiers undergoing a hail of fire during the Dieppe raid of 1942.