Motorcycles with Monkeys???

I read this article in a magazine (which magazine I cannot recall), recently.
This article mentioned that in (I believe it was WWII) that some officers had motorcycles with a cage attached to the side. In this cage was a monkey who would change the gears for the officer. So the officer could fire his pistol and still ride at the same time.

Is this true? Or some weak April fools joke?
Does anyone know anything about this?

Curious,
Rick

 

Rick has asked me to comment on this and I have to say that I have never heard of any such thing and it seems beyond the realm of possibilities.

A moving motorcycle is an unstable firing platform at the best of times.




I assume the idea would relate to a hand-change motorcycle. Most bikes with a footchange will accept clutchless changes.

The only possible source that I can think of for the story is that cages or baskets were carried on motorcycles for carrier / homing pigeons which were used for message carrying by many forces. perhaps someone has seen one of these photos and let their imagination work overtime ?

This is a poor copy of IWM H 3050



Rich