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Cher Ami: the pigeon who saved the Lost Battalion (1918)

This pigeon's last message read: 'For heaven's sake stop it.'

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The real story

In October 1918, in the Argonne Forest, more than 500 men of the US 77th Division under Major Charles Whittlesey were cut off and surrounded. On 4 October American artillery began shelling their position by mistake. Whittlesey's final note gave their coordinates and ended: 'Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven's sake stop it.'

Cher Ami flew about 40 km to the loft at Rampont despite being shot through the breast, blinded in one eye and having a leg left hanging by a tendon. Army medics saved the bird and carved it a small wooden leg. It died in 1919, and the Smithsonian has displayed it since 1921. The Army's records called Cher Ami a hen, but in 2021 DNA testing settled it: a male.

What the narrator says

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The facts we checked

  • In October 1918, more than 500 American soldiers (the 'Lost Battalion') were trapped in the Argonne Forest, France, and shelled by their own side
  • The pigeon Cher Ami carried their message through gunfire; though badly wounded — blinded in one eye and losing a leg — it got through and 194 men survived
  • Cher Ami received the French Croix de Guerre and is preserved at the Smithsonian; in 2021 scientists found the bird was male

Sources

We checked every number and date on screen before the video was made.

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