Cher Ami

On 2 October 1918 a battalion of the 77th Division under Major Charles Whittlesey advanced into the Argonne, took a position, and found itself cut off behind German lines — 554 men who became known as the Lost Battalion. They had no food, little water and no working radio, and after two days their own artillery, not knowing where they were, began dropping shells on them. Whittlesey had pigeons. The first was sent with a position and shot down. The second went and was shot down. Cher Ami was the last bird in the loft, and he went up on the morning of 4 October with a message tied to his leg: “We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven's sake, stop it.” He was hit almost at once, went down, got up again, and flew about twenty-five miles to divisional headquarters in something under half an hour. He arrived shot through the breast, blinded in one eye, and with the leg carrying the capsule hanging by a tendon. The barrage stopped. Of the 554 men, 194 walked out five days later. Army medics kept the bird alive and carved him a small wooden leg. France awarded him the Croix de Guerre with palm, and he was shipped home to the United States, where he died of his wounds in June 1919. He is mounted at the Smithsonian. DNA analysis in 2021 established that the most famous hen in military history was in fact a cock.

Loved by · Charles Whittlesey, The Lost Battalion

Honours

• 1918Carried the message that stopped friendly artillery falling on the Lost Battalion, 4 October
• 1918Flew 25 miles shot through the breast, blind in one eye, one leg hanging by a tendon
• 1918Croix de Guerre with palm, from the French Army
• 2019Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery, awarded posthumously
• · Mounted and displayed at the Smithsonian

Their kind

Selectively bred from the rock dove for the instinct to return, and raced for centuries before armies used it — a trained bird navigates home from hundreds of miles away by a sense we still argue about.

A life in seasons