This Day in History: Cher Ami, heroic WWI pigeon

On this day in 1918, Americans launch an attack at Cantigny, France.  That World War I conflict is notable, in part, because it marked an early use of homing pigeons as a means of military communication.

Did you know that a pigeon can fly as fast as 110 miles per hour, with the boost of a tailwind? They can also fly hundreds of miles at a time. Understandably, then, the United States Army Pigeon Service had approximately 600 pigeons that served during World War I.

The best known of these was a black check cock homing pigeon named Cher Ami. That feisty bird is credited with saving nearly 200 men in the so-called Lost Battalion during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in World War I.

It was early October 1918, and just over 550 of our soldiers were trapped behind enemy lines. Allied forces did not know their exact location, and radio communications were not possible. Commanding officer Maj. Charles W. Whittlesey was desperate, and he turned to pigeons. One by one, he sent them out, seeking help.

The enemy fire was intense, though, and his pigeons were having trouble completing the trip.

Matters became worse on October 4, when American artillery began bombarding the Lost Battalion’s position by accident. Whittlesey reached for Cher Ami, attaching one last message:

“We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heavens sake stop it.”

The pigeon determinedly took off, weaving his way through enemy fire. Half an hour later, he arrived at base. His right leg had been severed by enemy fire, and his message capsule was barely hanging on to the tendons of the severed leg. He’d been hit in the chest, too.

“[Cher Ami’s journey] back to his loft is incredible,” the Smithsonian’s Frank Blazich explained. “It would be the equivalent of a human getting gut-shot and holding their guts and still walking 100 miles back. It’s just mind-blowing—with a broken leg, I should add.”

By the time Cher Ami arrived at base, the artillery shelling had already stopped, but the message he carried finally told American officers where, exactly, they could find the Lost Battalion.

The surviving 194 soldiers in the Lost Battalion were rescued a few days later.

Cher Ami received credit for saving those men, although military records are technically unclear about which pigeon carried the critical message. Either way, Cher Ami delivered some kind of message under fire, and he was later returned to the United States, a hero who had earned the French Croix de Guerre with palm.

Despite the technical uncertainty, Capt. John L. Carney of the Pigeon Service declared that Cher Ami was the pigeon who’d saved the Lost Battalion, and Cher Ami’s official Army record states that the gutsy bird “[d]elivered 12 important messages . . . Average distance 30 kilometers. Average time 24 minutes. Returned on last occasion with leg shot away, message tube containing important document hanging by tendon. Missile which carried away leg, also passed through breast. . . . In this seriously wounded condition number 615 flew 40 kilometers in 25 minutes . . . .”

Unfortunately, Cher Ami never fully recovered from his injuries, and he died within about a year. He was preserved by a taxidermist and can be seen at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History today.

“T’was only a homing pigeon,” poet Margaret Shanks wrote in 1921, “but he did his duty well. Flashing back and forth the message through a fire of shot and shell.

“Maimed and torn, he carried onward. For a glorious cause must win. And it needed brave Cher Ami, flying straight through thick and thin.”

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they?

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animals can be found on my website, HERE.

Primary Sources:

• Adam Bieniek, Cher Ami: The Pigeon that Saved the Lost Battalion (World War I Centennial Commission)

• Alice George, Cher Ami, the Iconic World War I Carrier Pigeon, Makes His Debut at Carnegie Hall (Smithsonian Mag.; Nov. 8, 2023)

• Cher Ami Fact Sheet: A Century of Myth and Public Memory (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)

• Janice Kai Chen, Pigeons are still (sometimes) faster than your internet (Wash. Post; Nov. 10, 2023)

• Object: Cher Ami (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)

• Thomas M. Johnson, First American Offensive a Success: Capture of Cantigny by General Pershing’s Troops Described in Vivid Detail (Current History; July 1918) (pp. 57-62)

• Roland Usher, The Story of the Great War (1919) (reprinted HERE)

• Scott Travers, A Biologist Tells the Story Of ‘Cher Ami’—The World’s Most Famous War Pigeon (Forbes; Jan. 4, 2025)

• Susan Thompson, Century Old Mystery Solved – Cher Ami (U.S. Army; Aug. 27, 2021)

• Susan Thompson, Honoring Those Who Served – Pigeon Memorial (U.S. Army; July 6, 2023)