Cher Ami - The Pigeon That Saved 194 US Soldiers.
- bioworld090
- Jul 21, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 15, 2022
Image Credit: americanhistory.si.edu
WHO WAS CHER AMI?
Cher Ami(dear friend in French) was a pigeon born on April 21, 1918, who served in World War I as a homing or messenger pigeon. He is famous for saving the 194 members of the “Lost Battalion” led by Major Charles White Whittlesey who were surrounded by the German Army during the Meuse-Argonne offensive.
HOW DID CHER AMI SAVE THE LIVES OF 194 MEN?
Cher Ami was the pigeon that delivered the message from Major Whittlesey to his officers when allied units started to drop shells right over where he and his battalion were present. The allied units were mistaken about the location of Whittlesey and his men as Whittlesey and his battalion advanced beyond the German lines. The allied units thought that they were providing a barrage of protection to Whittlesey and his men to keep the Germans away.
The allied units started firing on October 4, 1918. Initially, Major Charles White Whittlesey and Captain George Gibson McMurtry waited for the artillery to correct their fire. Some time passed and the allied units were still firing towards their location. At this point, Major Whittlesey grabbed his pigeoneer Pvt. Omer Richards and moved to a commanding hole where he composed the message:
"We are along the road parallel[sic] 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven's sake stop it."
(The word [sic] indicates a grammatical error in the quoted text above. It is used to indicate that the error was present in the original text and is copied as it is in the original text.),
Image Credit: markericson.com
Pvt. Omer Richards then attached the message to Cher Ami’s leg and released the bird but as the fire was too thick, Cher Ami perched on a tree after flying a very short distance. Richards jumped out of his hole and ran down the hill when throwing sticks and rocks at Cher Ami did not do any good. Richards started shaking the tree and finally, the bird took flight.
According to some sources, Cher Ami covered a distance of 40 km delivering Whittlesey’s message at the division headquarters in just 25 minutes and he did all this while being shot through the breast, blinded in one eye and having a leg barely hanging by just a tendon. The headquarters officers stepped in and stopped the "mistaken barrage". This is how Cher Ami saved the lives of 194 members of the Lost Battalion.
THE BODY OF CHER AMI
Image Credit: americanhistory.si.edu
After Cher Ami's death, taxidermist Nelson R. Wood stuffed and mounted the body of Cher Ami for display. Since then the body of Cher Ami has been on display at Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
RECOVERY AND DEATH
Even after suffering serious injuries, Cher Ami showed a positive response to the treatments he was given. As a result, he managed to survive but was now left with only one leg. In April 1919, he was brought back to the United States on a boat and spent the rest of his life at Signal Corps Headquarters. Fort Monmouth, New Jersey until his death on June 13, 1919.
DEBATE ABOUT CHER AMI'S SEX
For years, there has been a lot of debate on whether Cher Ami was a male or female pigeon. Certain sources address the bird as "she" while others address the bird as "he". The debate about the sex of Cher Ami seems to have been settled by an experiment conducted in 2021.
On May 10, 2021, Dr. Carla Dove and Dr. Robert Fleischer took tissue samples from the stump of Cher Ami’s right leg and the underside of the left rear toe pad. Then, Nancy Rotzel McInerney, lab manager of Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics (CCG) extracted DNA samples from the tissues. The extracted DNA was then subjected to a polymerase chain reaction(PCR) to make millions of copies for use in gel electrophoresis to determine what sex-specific DNA sequences were present.
Dr. Carla Dove also provided samples from toe pads of two male and female pigeon specimens to compare the DNA sequences of Cher Ami with them for sex determination.
Image Credit: americanhistory.si.edu
When the results came on June 30, it was revealed that Cher Ami had Z-specific DNA sequences and no W-specific DNA sequences which indicates that Cher Ami was a male pigeon as male birds have two Z chromosomes and female birds have one Z and one W chromosome.
AWARDS AND HONOURS
Cher Ami became the hero for the "Lost Battalion" and others for his heroism. He was brought back to the United States on a boat after his recovery from the injuries. Cher Ami was awarded the Croix de Guerre Medal with a palm Oak Leaf Cluster for his heroic service in delivering 12 important messages in Verdun. 12 years after his death, he was inducted into the Racing Pigeon Hall of Fame in 1931. He also received a gold medal from the Organized Bodies of American Racing Pigeon Fanciers in recognition of his service during World War I. He also became one of the first winners of the Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery instituted in 2019 to honour the work of American animals in war and peace.
DEBATE ABOUT CHER AMI'S ROLE IN SAVING "LOST BATTALION"
Although Cher Ami's act of heroism cannot be questioned, his role in saving the "Lost Battalion" has been questioned by a man named Robert John Laplander. Robert is an author and a historian who has researched the "Lost Battalion" for over 20 years. According to Robert, Cher Ami successfully delivered the message but was not the exact reason for saving the lives of Major Whittlesey and his men. Read about what Robert has to say about this here under the "Myths and Legends of the Lost Battalion: Cher Ami, the Heroic Pigeon" section.
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