February 3, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, experience the gripping drama of the front lines as a valiant pigeon becomes the last hope to stop a brutal friendly-fire barrage! Historian Frank Blazich, from the National Museum of American History, shares the story of the use of homing pigeons during WWI.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories, and up next
we have a history story from Frank Blazic, a curator
at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
During World War One, Europe began to look to homing
pigeons as a means of communication. Trench warfare was no
place for radio or wired lines that were easily tapped
(00:34):
or damaged, and so they turned to pigeons. Here's Frank
Blaizich with a.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Story why pigeons of all things.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well, ancient history is a bit sketchy and about how
accurate it is. We do know that in the nineteenth
century pigeons could be used to reliably send small messages
from essentially point A to point B. This was most
notable in the Siege of Paris in the Franco Prussian
War from eighteen seventy to seventy one, where the French
(01:13):
were able to in some cases move pigeons out of
Paris by balloon, and then the pigeons could transmit They
would actually carry essentially early microfilmed messages from outside Paris
back into Paris and vice versa, and so the French
uses to get around the German siege with some success.
(01:37):
After the siege was over, a lot of the world's
militaries took note of this and said, hm, we might
want to develop this capability, if you will, for our uses.
And so you see a number of governments in Europe
begin to develop homing pigeon effort offices, programs and so
forth within their militaries. The United States doesn't we begin
(01:57):
to kind of play around with pigeons are mening at best.
But we long story shortn't. We just don't really develop
the capability until in nineteen seventeen the German government informs
Wilson that they're going to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare.
The Germans finally say, one of the only ways that
we're going to begin to really knock Britain out of
(02:18):
the war or severely curtail their war effort on the
Western Front is to sink the merchant ships that are
bringing food and supplies and other aid to the British
home miles. And so they'll unleash their U boats to
do unrestricted warfare, and President Wilson will go to Congress
(02:41):
request the declaration of war, which Congress grants. In the
United States centers the war in April sixth, nineteen seventeen.
We're bred eyed and bushy tailed, so to speak, and
entering the war. But again we don't have any pigeons.
When the first American troops officers will begin to head
overseas to England in France in June of nineteen seventeen,
(03:03):
they have this massive learning curve to get caught up
with the conflict itself and the various technologies that the
combatants have been engaged in over the previous few years.
A good example of this when the first American troops
will actually arrive in France, they don't have helmets. We
don't have what we think of today is something very commonplace.
We don't actually have steel helmets in use for our soldiers.
(03:28):
They come ashore wearing felt campaign hats, something you'd see
in the American West. The US Navy, the first time
we send ships overseas in May nineteen seventeen, they had
never seen a depth charge before, which had only recently
been developed to basically combat German U boats. This is
all completely new to the US military, so the learning
curve is quite steep, and that includes pigeons. And when
(03:53):
the US Armies signal officers particularly Colonel Edgar A. Russell,
chief signal officer to General John J. Pershing, commanding the
American Expeditionary Forces. When he begins to meet with his
counterparts in the British and French armies, they basically say,
you need to get pigeons. These work, they're proven, and
(04:14):
in this kind of fighting in the trenches, with the
risk of your communications being cut by artillery or other means,
pigeons are really the best option in a pinch to
get your information from may to be so. In July
of nineteen seventeen, the call is sent from Russell to
Major General Georgio Squire, and he's the chief Signal officer
(04:36):
of the entire United States Army, and he basically says,
we need pigeons, right, we need to set up this service.
And General Pershing will then request two officers as well
as I think about a dozen enlisted men to come
over to France and set up a pigeon service for
the US Army. We have about twenty five hundred birds
(04:57):
roughly when we start the English. The British Expeditionary Force
they've had they've been using pigeons for years now, and
in May of nineteen eighteen, they will actually give the
United States Army six hundred young pigeons. So that's that's
how the bird that we now know is Charmy will
(05:17):
first come into the US Army on May twentieth, nineteen eighteen,
arguably a conscripted so to speak, or selected to join
the United States Army. So in terms of the training
of the pigeons, the pigeons are usually about four to
six weeks old, and at that point they're moved into
what are called mobile lofts. And the best way to
(05:40):
describe I like to refer to the mobile loft as
a pigeon RV. It's basically a large wooden kind of
like box car that's put on a truck truck frame
which has leaf spring suspension so forth, so you can
move it. You can actually move. The loft with the
movement of the armies. Is really the home. That is
(06:02):
where the birds are going to eat, that's where they're
going to sleep in some cases, that's where they're going
to find their mate and breed, and that is what
they're going to return to at all points in time.
And so once the birds are in the loft, you're
training the bird that if it wants to eat, it
has to come home to the loft. If it wants
to return to its mate, be it a male or female.
(06:22):
I should pause and say, pigeons mate for life, So
the birds want to return to their partner. In whatever case,
the birds have this desire understandably to get back home.
Share me in July of nineteen eighteen is assigned to
Mobile Loft number eleven. That bird, as well as Loft
(06:45):
number eleven, will find itself in September of nineteen eighteen
preparing for the launch of the meuse Argone offensive. And
this is still the bloodiest operation in American military history,
and we had something like five hundred and fifty nine
Americans killed in action every single day for forty seven
I think it's forty seven consecutive days. So it's an
(07:08):
incredibly costly, costly offensive, but it's really the culmination of
America's involvement in World War One on the battlefield, and
pigeons will absolutely play a major part of this. These
pigeons for Mobile Loft number eleven as well Mobile off
(07:30):
number nine, will support soldiers of the seventy seventh Infantry
Division and now they're going to be fighting through the
Argonne Forest. There is the first battalion of the three
hundred eighth Infantry Regiment of the seventy seventh Division, is
commanded by a Major Charles W. Whittlesey, and Whittlesey is
going to receive orders to essentially advance to what is
(07:53):
known as the Levergette Moulone de Charlevo Bnnerville roadrect through
the forest, and he's told that once he reaches the
road he's to halt and wait for reinforcements. Whittlesy gets
to the road, he then basically sends a message back,
I'm here. The problem here is Whittlesey is essentially advanced
(08:14):
faster than the units on its flanks, and this leaves
him dangerously vulnerable to encirclement by the Germans. And unfortunately,
on October third, that is absolutely what will happen. At
that point. Whittlesey his runner posts where he's basically had
soldiers running messages. You know, they've been cut by the Germans.
So the only way Whittlesey can communicate at this point
(08:35):
is using one of the eight homing pigeons that he
had men carry with them when they advanced.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And you've been listening to Frank Blaizich, a curator at
the National Museum of American History, telling the story of
the role homing pigeons played in World War One. Can
you imagine telling black Jack Pershing and that, of course
was the man who was the general of the armies
in World War One? We need more pigeons and meaning it,
and of course we did. And when we come back,
(09:08):
we're going to learn more about the role these homing
pigeons played in saving American lives and helping win a war.
Here on our American stories, and we continue here on
(09:41):
our American stories. Historian Frank Blaizich from the National Museum
of American History has been telling us the story of
the use of homing pigeons during World War One. Major
Charles Whittlesey was leading a battalion through the Argonne Forest
during the bloodiest and largest operation of World War He
and his men had advanced quickly and were now surrounded
(10:04):
by the Germans. His communication lines had been cut, and
the only means of communication he had left were those pigeons.
Back to Frank Plasich.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Beginning on October fourth, the Americans are still trapped there
on the side of the Charlottelo Ravine. The Germans are
still in forced surrounding them. Back at the seventy seventh
Division headquarters, the senior leadership is trying to figure out, well,
where exactly is Whittlesey, can't really find him beneath the
forest canopy, how do we support him? And what they're
going to do is they're going to decide to fire
(10:42):
an artillery barrage on the slope of the ridge south
of Whittlesey's position, and the hope here is that they're
going to hit the Germans kind of behind Whittlesey. Unfortunately,
they have the Whittlesey's position incorrectly documented, and instead of
dropping the shells around the Americans, they actually begin to
drop them on their own men. At that point, there's
(11:07):
only two pigeons left, and this is about three pm
in October fourth. Whittlesey finds his pigeoneers and he calls
for a bird and he writes a very simple direct
message that reads, quote, we are along the road parallel
two seven six point four. Our own artillery is dropping
a barrage directly on us. For Heaven's sake, stop it.
(11:27):
When the pigeoneer prepares to remove one of the two
birds from its protective basket. The bird basically breaks free
of his grasp and flies away. I should pause and
remind the listeners in all this time, there's artillery, friendly
artillery falling around the Americans. At this point, Whittlesy kind
(11:50):
of glared at this pigeoneer and quote uttered an uncharacteristically
rude word. We can use our imagination to say what
he said. His young private apologized, and at that point
he grabbed the last pigeon and held that bird firmly
in his grasp. They attached the message to the pigeon
and released the bird to hopefully fly up and out.
(12:12):
But the pigeon didn't fly up and out. The pigeon
actually rose into the air and circled two or three times,
and then it landed a short distance downhill on the
limb of a tree, and it appeared to clean its
pranus feathers, clean itself. Whittlesey apparently turned to his pigeoneer
and said, can't you shoot it away? Can't you make
the bird move? And if you can believe this, literally
(12:35):
all these men cowering for their lives and these in
these foxholes doing with the candles to fight. Honors suddenly
beginan yelling boo, and they're throwing rocks and sticks at
the pigeon. They're screaming at it, anything to get it
to move and fly away, and the pigeon answers by
by hopping to a higher branch. At this point, the pigeoneer,
(12:56):
and I haven't mentioned his name, his name is Omer Richards.
Omar Richards is already under the gun, so to speak.
He lost the first pigeon, this is now his last pigeon.
He gets up out of his foxhole and kind of
runs down to the tree where the pigeon is in underfire.
He begins to climb up the tree trunk and he's
shaking the tree as he goes, and finally he reaches
(13:19):
the branch where his pigeon is perched, and he shakes
it and the bird finally flew away. At this point,
the Germans, who realize what's going on here, that the
Americans are trying to get a message out, they open
up on the pigeon with a small arms rifle, pistol shot,
possibly machine guns. At one point, one member of one
American remembered that a artillery shell exploded beneath the bird,
(13:43):
and he said it killed five of our men, but
that it seemingly stunned the pigeon or hurt the pigeon,
and the bird fluttered kind of near the bottom of
the ravine, seemingly the last hope had been shot out
of the sky. So that was it. All the men
could do at this point was just sit and hope
that the ratory fire would stop, which it did at
three forty five PM. The American leadership suddenly realized that
(14:07):
they had the position incorrect for Whittlesey, and that they
were shelling their own men. The word went out, you know,
cease firing, seas firing. Shortly after the shelling ceased, at
about four h five, this last pigeon arrived at Loft
number eleven. They found the message to hanging just from
the remains of the bird's right leg the ligaments, and
(14:28):
that there was a deep wound that cut across the
breast of the bird. They removed the message. They immediately
relay it to the headquarters by telephone, and they're able
to bandage up the bird's wounds, but they'll have to
amputate the one leg that's essentially no longer connected now
(14:50):
Whittlesy and the man of this force that is now
known as the Lost Battalion. They have no idea if
the message from the pigeon made it back to headquarters.
They have to spend the remainder of that afternoons of
the evening, all through the cold of the night, questioning
their fate, if you will. On the morning of October fifth,
the Germans begin to fire on them again. They're still surrounded,
(15:14):
and at about ten am there's another American artillery Brage
suffice to say, those who experienced the horror of the
previous day and are assuming well, great, here it comes again. However,
in this case, de Brage crept up on their position,
but then stopped and began to hit the Germans on
the other side of them. And to Whittlesey and the
(15:36):
Captain McMurtry, they recorded after the event that quote. This
was proof that the position of the command was understood
by the troops fighting forward to make the relief. The
last pigeon message had got through to its destination, so
they knew that the American leadership finally understood exactly where
they were to try to move forward to rescue them,
(15:58):
and on the afternoon of October seven, and that evening
the Lost Battalion was rescued. Of the roughly six hundred
and eighty seven I've seen figures into the six hundred
ninety men who entered the ravine, there were only one
hundred and ninety four who could walk out under their
own power. In terms of the pigeons involvement, you know
(16:19):
what bird was the bird that saved the lost Battalion,
or as people like to claim today, there really is
no mention of pigeons until later in the media coverage
of the Lost Battalion, And eventually it will it will
come out in the press that yes, pigeons were used,
(16:39):
but the birds are nameless. Right, the humans are named,
but the birds are nameless. But after the Armistice of
November eleventh, nineteen eighteen, the army's initial plan as well,
let's sell all the pigeons, don't bring any of them home.
But Captain Buskell, in charge of the pigeon service, says,
you know, we should save some of these pigeons. We
should certainly save the pigeon that brought in his message
(17:02):
of a leg almost shot off and this incredible feet
of bravery. But we need to bring that bird home.
At some point then the pigeon is named. One name
is Big Tom, and later the name is changed to
share a me. So they're saying this bird lost his leg,
(17:23):
took serious wounds in the course of delivering its message,
but never says that none of the records say that
this pigeon was involved with the Lost Battalion, but that
will all change. April sixteenth, nineteen nineteen, when Captain Carney
is the senior officer escorting these hero pigeons home, there's
lots of reporters there at the dock in Hoboken, New Jersey,
(17:43):
and he basically holds up Cheremi and says, you know,
this is the bird that saved the Lost Battalion. And
the press picks this up that the Lost Battalion and
so many American heroes is saved by the humblest of creatures,
the simple pigeon. And that's really when the Sheeremi's story
goes from questionable fact to just absolute gigantic legend. And
(18:05):
it's that story from this doc in Hoboken, New Jersey,
and that's the first time this has ever come out.
The problem is, unfortunately, while Cheremi whatever shermy did and
where and exactly when there's no question based on the
bird's injuries, that it did an incredibly heroic act. You
can't definitively link it to the Lost Battalion. Whatever the
(18:26):
case may be. Cheremi becomes this darling of the American
public and the US Army. Little Cheremi will die, most
likely on June thirteenth, nineteen nineteen. Quite frankly, the wounds,
particularly that chest wound, is so severe that the bird
is just not able to recover from it. But because
Cheremie was thankfully saved and taxidermy, the physical object in
(18:50):
some respects serves as a memorial not just to the
heroism of pigeons and the heroism of animals World War One,
but a way the heroism of the Lost Battalion, and
even veterans of the Lost Battalion would come to the
US National Museum as it was known at the time
prior to it becoming the National Museum of American History,
and they would show their children and say, that little
(19:11):
pigeon is the reason that I survive today. If you
owe your life to that little pigeon. The power of
the myth is such no amount of research publication will
probably ever overcome this public desire to link share Me
to the Lost Battalion. But I like to look at
charm as this kind of amazing representative of the power
(19:33):
of even the smallest participating in more to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
And a great team effort on the production Madison, Robbie
and Faith and also a special thanks to historian Frank
Blazic from the National Museum of American History. By the way,
in nineteen thirty one, share Ami was inducted into Racing
Pigeon Hall of Fame. In twenty nineteen in Augus recipient
of the Animals in War and Peace Medal of Bravery
(20:05):
the story of homing pigeons in World War One. Here
on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories, and up next
we have a history story from Frank Blazic, a curator
at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
During World War One, Europe began to look to homing
pigeons as a means of communication. Trench warfare was no
place for radio or wired lines that were easily tapped
(00:34):
or damaged, and so they turned to pigeons. Here's Frank
Blaizich with a.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Story why pigeons of all things.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well, ancient history is a bit sketchy and about how
accurate it is. We do know that in the nineteenth
century pigeons could be used to reliably send small messages
from essentially point A to point B. This was most
notable in the Siege of Paris in the Franco Prussian
War from eighteen seventy to seventy one, where the French
(01:13):
were able to in some cases move pigeons out of
Paris by balloon, and then the pigeons could transmit They
would actually carry essentially early microfilmed messages from outside Paris
back into Paris and vice versa, and so the French
uses to get around the German siege with some success.
(01:37):
After the siege was over, a lot of the world's
militaries took note of this and said, hm, we might
want to develop this capability, if you will, for our uses.
And so you see a number of governments in Europe
begin to develop homing pigeon effort offices, programs and so
forth within their militaries. The United States doesn't we begin
(01:57):
to kind of play around with pigeons are mening at best.
But we long story shortn't. We just don't really develop
the capability until in nineteen seventeen the German government informs
Wilson that they're going to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare.
The Germans finally say, one of the only ways that
we're going to begin to really knock Britain out of
(02:18):
the war or severely curtail their war effort on the
Western Front is to sink the merchant ships that are
bringing food and supplies and other aid to the British
home miles. And so they'll unleash their U boats to
do unrestricted warfare, and President Wilson will go to Congress
(02:41):
request the declaration of war, which Congress grants. In the
United States centers the war in April sixth, nineteen seventeen.
We're bred eyed and bushy tailed, so to speak, and
entering the war. But again we don't have any pigeons.
When the first American troops officers will begin to head
overseas to England in France in June of nineteen seventeen,
(03:03):
they have this massive learning curve to get caught up
with the conflict itself and the various technologies that the
combatants have been engaged in over the previous few years.
A good example of this when the first American troops
will actually arrive in France, they don't have helmets. We
don't have what we think of today is something very commonplace.
We don't actually have steel helmets in use for our soldiers.
(03:28):
They come ashore wearing felt campaign hats, something you'd see
in the American West. The US Navy, the first time
we send ships overseas in May nineteen seventeen, they had
never seen a depth charge before, which had only recently
been developed to basically combat German U boats. This is
all completely new to the US military, so the learning
curve is quite steep, and that includes pigeons. And when
(03:53):
the US Armies signal officers particularly Colonel Edgar A. Russell,
chief signal officer to General John J. Pershing, commanding the
American Expeditionary Forces. When he begins to meet with his
counterparts in the British and French armies, they basically say,
you need to get pigeons. These work, they're proven, and
(04:14):
in this kind of fighting in the trenches, with the
risk of your communications being cut by artillery or other means,
pigeons are really the best option in a pinch to
get your information from may to be so. In July
of nineteen seventeen, the call is sent from Russell to
Major General Georgio Squire, and he's the chief Signal officer
(04:36):
of the entire United States Army, and he basically says,
we need pigeons, right, we need to set up this service.
And General Pershing will then request two officers as well
as I think about a dozen enlisted men to come
over to France and set up a pigeon service for
the US Army. We have about twenty five hundred birds
(04:57):
roughly when we start the English. The British Expeditionary Force
they've had they've been using pigeons for years now, and
in May of nineteen eighteen, they will actually give the
United States Army six hundred young pigeons. So that's that's
how the bird that we now know is Charmy will
(05:17):
first come into the US Army on May twentieth, nineteen eighteen,
arguably a conscripted so to speak, or selected to join
the United States Army. So in terms of the training
of the pigeons, the pigeons are usually about four to
six weeks old, and at that point they're moved into
what are called mobile lofts. And the best way to
(05:40):
describe I like to refer to the mobile loft as
a pigeon RV. It's basically a large wooden kind of
like box car that's put on a truck truck frame
which has leaf spring suspension so forth, so you can
move it. You can actually move. The loft with the
movement of the armies. Is really the home. That is
(06:02):
where the birds are going to eat, that's where they're
going to sleep in some cases, that's where they're going
to find their mate and breed, and that is what
they're going to return to at all points in time.
And so once the birds are in the loft, you're
training the bird that if it wants to eat, it
has to come home to the loft. If it wants
to return to its mate, be it a male or female.
(06:22):
I should pause and say, pigeons mate for life, So
the birds want to return to their partner. In whatever case,
the birds have this desire understandably to get back home.
Share me in July of nineteen eighteen is assigned to
Mobile Loft number eleven. That bird, as well as Loft
(06:45):
number eleven, will find itself in September of nineteen eighteen
preparing for the launch of the meuse Argone offensive. And
this is still the bloodiest operation in American military history,
and we had something like five hundred and fifty nine
Americans killed in action every single day for forty seven
I think it's forty seven consecutive days. So it's an
(07:08):
incredibly costly, costly offensive, but it's really the culmination of
America's involvement in World War One on the battlefield, and
pigeons will absolutely play a major part of this. These
pigeons for Mobile Loft number eleven as well Mobile off
(07:30):
number nine, will support soldiers of the seventy seventh Infantry
Division and now they're going to be fighting through the
Argonne Forest. There is the first battalion of the three
hundred eighth Infantry Regiment of the seventy seventh Division, is
commanded by a Major Charles W. Whittlesey, and Whittlesey is
going to receive orders to essentially advance to what is
(07:53):
known as the Levergette Moulone de Charlevo Bnnerville roadrect through
the forest, and he's told that once he reaches the
road he's to halt and wait for reinforcements. Whittlesy gets
to the road, he then basically sends a message back,
I'm here. The problem here is Whittlesey is essentially advanced
(08:14):
faster than the units on its flanks, and this leaves
him dangerously vulnerable to encirclement by the Germans. And unfortunately,
on October third, that is absolutely what will happen. At
that point. Whittlesey his runner posts where he's basically had
soldiers running messages. You know, they've been cut by the Germans.
So the only way Whittlesey can communicate at this point
(08:35):
is using one of the eight homing pigeons that he
had men carry with them when they advanced.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And you've been listening to Frank Blaizich, a curator at
the National Museum of American History, telling the story of
the role homing pigeons played in World War One. Can
you imagine telling black Jack Pershing and that, of course
was the man who was the general of the armies
in World War One? We need more pigeons and meaning it,
and of course we did. And when we come back,
(09:08):
we're going to learn more about the role these homing
pigeons played in saving American lives and helping win a war.
Here on our American stories, and we continue here on
(09:41):
our American stories. Historian Frank Blaizich from the National Museum
of American History has been telling us the story of
the use of homing pigeons during World War One. Major
Charles Whittlesey was leading a battalion through the Argonne Forest
during the bloodiest and largest operation of World War He
and his men had advanced quickly and were now surrounded
(10:04):
by the Germans. His communication lines had been cut, and
the only means of communication he had left were those pigeons.
Back to Frank Plasich.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Beginning on October fourth, the Americans are still trapped there
on the side of the Charlottelo Ravine. The Germans are
still in forced surrounding them. Back at the seventy seventh
Division headquarters, the senior leadership is trying to figure out, well,
where exactly is Whittlesey, can't really find him beneath the
forest canopy, how do we support him? And what they're
going to do is they're going to decide to fire
(10:42):
an artillery barrage on the slope of the ridge south
of Whittlesey's position, and the hope here is that they're
going to hit the Germans kind of behind Whittlesey. Unfortunately,
they have the Whittlesey's position incorrectly documented, and instead of
dropping the shells around the Americans, they actually begin to
drop them on their own men. At that point, there's
(11:07):
only two pigeons left, and this is about three pm
in October fourth. Whittlesey finds his pigeoneers and he calls
for a bird and he writes a very simple direct
message that reads, quote, we are along the road parallel
two seven six point four. Our own artillery is dropping
a barrage directly on us. For Heaven's sake, stop it.
(11:27):
When the pigeoneer prepares to remove one of the two
birds from its protective basket. The bird basically breaks free
of his grasp and flies away. I should pause and
remind the listeners in all this time, there's artillery, friendly
artillery falling around the Americans. At this point, Whittlesy kind
(11:50):
of glared at this pigeoneer and quote uttered an uncharacteristically
rude word. We can use our imagination to say what
he said. His young private apologized, and at that point
he grabbed the last pigeon and held that bird firmly
in his grasp. They attached the message to the pigeon
and released the bird to hopefully fly up and out.
(12:12):
But the pigeon didn't fly up and out. The pigeon
actually rose into the air and circled two or three times,
and then it landed a short distance downhill on the
limb of a tree, and it appeared to clean its
pranus feathers, clean itself. Whittlesey apparently turned to his pigeoneer
and said, can't you shoot it away? Can't you make
the bird move? And if you can believe this, literally
(12:35):
all these men cowering for their lives and these in
these foxholes doing with the candles to fight. Honors suddenly
beginan yelling boo, and they're throwing rocks and sticks at
the pigeon. They're screaming at it, anything to get it
to move and fly away, and the pigeon answers by
by hopping to a higher branch. At this point, the pigeoneer,
(12:56):
and I haven't mentioned his name, his name is Omer Richards.
Omar Richards is already under the gun, so to speak.
He lost the first pigeon, this is now his last pigeon.
He gets up out of his foxhole and kind of
runs down to the tree where the pigeon is in underfire.
He begins to climb up the tree trunk and he's
shaking the tree as he goes, and finally he reaches
(13:19):
the branch where his pigeon is perched, and he shakes
it and the bird finally flew away. At this point,
the Germans, who realize what's going on here, that the
Americans are trying to get a message out, they open
up on the pigeon with a small arms rifle, pistol shot,
possibly machine guns. At one point, one member of one
American remembered that a artillery shell exploded beneath the bird,
(13:43):
and he said it killed five of our men, but
that it seemingly stunned the pigeon or hurt the pigeon,
and the bird fluttered kind of near the bottom of
the ravine, seemingly the last hope had been shot out
of the sky. So that was it. All the men
could do at this point was just sit and hope
that the ratory fire would stop, which it did at
three forty five PM. The American leadership suddenly realized that
(14:07):
they had the position incorrect for Whittlesey, and that they
were shelling their own men. The word went out, you know,
cease firing, seas firing. Shortly after the shelling ceased, at
about four h five, this last pigeon arrived at Loft
number eleven. They found the message to hanging just from
the remains of the bird's right leg the ligaments, and
(14:28):
that there was a deep wound that cut across the
breast of the bird. They removed the message. They immediately
relay it to the headquarters by telephone, and they're able
to bandage up the bird's wounds, but they'll have to
amputate the one leg that's essentially no longer connected now
(14:50):
Whittlesy and the man of this force that is now
known as the Lost Battalion. They have no idea if
the message from the pigeon made it back to headquarters.
They have to spend the remainder of that afternoons of
the evening, all through the cold of the night, questioning
their fate, if you will. On the morning of October fifth,
the Germans begin to fire on them again. They're still surrounded,
(15:14):
and at about ten am there's another American artillery Brage
suffice to say, those who experienced the horror of the
previous day and are assuming well, great, here it comes again. However,
in this case, de Brage crept up on their position,
but then stopped and began to hit the Germans on
the other side of them. And to Whittlesey and the
(15:36):
Captain McMurtry, they recorded after the event that quote. This
was proof that the position of the command was understood
by the troops fighting forward to make the relief. The
last pigeon message had got through to its destination, so
they knew that the American leadership finally understood exactly where
they were to try to move forward to rescue them,
(15:58):
and on the afternoon of October seven, and that evening
the Lost Battalion was rescued. Of the roughly six hundred
and eighty seven I've seen figures into the six hundred
ninety men who entered the ravine, there were only one
hundred and ninety four who could walk out under their
own power. In terms of the pigeons involvement, you know
(16:19):
what bird was the bird that saved the lost Battalion,
or as people like to claim today, there really is
no mention of pigeons until later in the media coverage
of the Lost Battalion, And eventually it will it will
come out in the press that yes, pigeons were used,
(16:39):
but the birds are nameless. Right, the humans are named,
but the birds are nameless. But after the Armistice of
November eleventh, nineteen eighteen, the army's initial plan as well,
let's sell all the pigeons, don't bring any of them home.
But Captain Buskell, in charge of the pigeon service, says,
you know, we should save some of these pigeons. We
should certainly save the pigeon that brought in his message
(17:02):
of a leg almost shot off and this incredible feet
of bravery. But we need to bring that bird home.
At some point then the pigeon is named. One name
is Big Tom, and later the name is changed to
share a me. So they're saying this bird lost his leg,
(17:23):
took serious wounds in the course of delivering its message,
but never says that none of the records say that
this pigeon was involved with the Lost Battalion, but that
will all change. April sixteenth, nineteen nineteen, when Captain Carney
is the senior officer escorting these hero pigeons home, there's
lots of reporters there at the dock in Hoboken, New Jersey,
(17:43):
and he basically holds up Cheremi and says, you know,
this is the bird that saved the Lost Battalion. And
the press picks this up that the Lost Battalion and
so many American heroes is saved by the humblest of creatures,
the simple pigeon. And that's really when the Sheeremi's story
goes from questionable fact to just absolute gigantic legend. And
(18:05):
it's that story from this doc in Hoboken, New Jersey,
and that's the first time this has ever come out.
The problem is, unfortunately, while Cheremi whatever shermy did and
where and exactly when there's no question based on the
bird's injuries, that it did an incredibly heroic act. You
can't definitively link it to the Lost Battalion. Whatever the
(18:26):
case may be. Cheremi becomes this darling of the American
public and the US Army. Little Cheremi will die, most
likely on June thirteenth, nineteen nineteen. Quite frankly, the wounds,
particularly that chest wound, is so severe that the bird
is just not able to recover from it. But because
Cheremie was thankfully saved and taxidermy, the physical object in
(18:50):
some respects serves as a memorial not just to the
heroism of pigeons and the heroism of animals World War One,
but a way the heroism of the Lost Battalion, and
even veterans of the Lost Battalion would come to the
US National Museum as it was known at the time
prior to it becoming the National Museum of American History,
and they would show their children and say, that little
(19:11):
pigeon is the reason that I survive today. If you
owe your life to that little pigeon. The power of
the myth is such no amount of research publication will
probably ever overcome this public desire to link share Me
to the Lost Battalion. But I like to look at
charm as this kind of amazing representative of the power
(19:33):
of even the smallest participating in more to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
And a great team effort on the production Madison, Robbie
and Faith and also a special thanks to historian Frank
Blazic from the National Museum of American History. By the way,
in nineteen thirty one, share Ami was inducted into Racing
Pigeon Hall of Fame. In twenty nineteen in Augus recipient
of the Animals in War and Peace Medal of Bravery
(20:05):
the story of homing pigeons in World War One. Here
on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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