It’s a rare thing for Bird of the Week to focus on an individual bird, but this week I want to tell you the story of Cher Ami.
Cher Ami was a Homing Pigeon (Columba livia domestica), born in April 1918. She was raised specifically to deliver messages during the First World War. In October 1918, as the war was drawing to a close, she and two other Pigeons were assigned to the US 77th Division, under the command of one Major Charles Whittlesey.
During an operation, 550 men from the Division found themselves trapped behind enemy lines. They had no food, no ammunition, and to make matters worse they began taking friendly fire from their own artillery.
Pinned down, with no other way to reach headquarters, Charles took his first Pigeon and scribbled a hurried note, begging them to stop the barrage. He released the Pigeon, but German sharp shooters were watching and shot it from the sky. The second Pigeon met the same fate.
Charles then took Cher Ami and wrote: ‘We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heavens sake stop it.’
He released her, only to watch her shot from the sky like the others. All hope seemed lost, but then somehow Cher Ami rose from the undergrowth and took off back to base, covering the 40Km in just 25 minutes. That’s a speed of around 96Km/h.
Cher Ami had been shot through the breast, blinded in one eye and had one foot hanging from a single tendon, but she delivered her message, saving the lives of 194 soldiers. Seeing that she was in a desperate state, medics were brought in to work on her, and they managed to save her life. In time they even fashioned her a tiny peg leg.
For her service Cher Ami was awarded Croix de Guerre, a French decoration for valour. Once stable she was shipped back the United States where she was greeted as a national hero. Sadly, her wounds were so serve that she eventually died on 13 June 1919.
Her body was preserved, and she was placed on display at the Smithsonian Museum, where she remains to this day.
As a final fun fact, people familiar with French may have noticed that Cher Ami is the masculine form of the phrase, ‘dear friend’. While alive, Cher Ami was thought to have been a male, but after she died the taxidermist discovered she had been a lady pigeon the whole time.
She is the greatest hero in all Pigeondom, and today we salute her.
12/01/2020
Bird of the Week 