In October 1918, World War I was gradually drawing to a close in the Argonne Forest in northeastern France. Inch by inch, more than one million Allied fighting men slowly wrestled Europe from the occupying Germans, with considerable casualties occurring on both sides. Losses were particularly heavy amongst a battalion of Americans which had pressed too far into enemy territory, leaving 550 soldiers surrounded, outnumbered, and cut off from communications. For days the men valiantly deflected enemy attacks amidst a hail of friendly artillery, but rapidly dwindling forces and supplies soon led to a desperate situation.
Left with no alternative, a member of the US Army Signal Corps named Cher Ami was given the dangerous task of darting past the enemy forces with a message for the Allied commanders. The hastily scribbled note politely requested that headquarters increase the supply of men while decreasing the supply of red-hot shrapnel. As Cher Ami dashed from the forest, enemy gunfire left him with a gunshot wound to the chest and a badly mangled leg, but nonetheless he managed to traverse the twenty-five miles to the command post to deliver his message. As a result, the misplaced battalion was finally rescued.
Cher Ami was awarded France’s Croix de Guerre medal for his heroism, but due to his wounds he did not long survive. When he passed away several months later, his remains were placed in a crate and sent to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, where he was stuffed, mounted, and put on display. Cher Ami, the American war hero, was a homing pigeon.
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