SAVED A BATTALION

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19880, 8 May 1936, Page 9

SAVED A BATTALION

MONUMENT TO PIGEONS. CEREMONY IN FRANCE. (Times Air Mail Service). LONDON, April 14. With full military honours a monument was unveiled at Lille to-day to the memory of 20,000 carrier pigeons killed during the war, says the Paris correspondent of the News Chronicle. Telephone wires might be cut, wireless mesages overheard by the enemy, and dispatch riders -captured but, when all else failed, pigeons were the swiftest and surest messengers of the war. The most renowned bird was Cher Ami, born in an English racing loft and registered at the National Union of Racing Pigeons as No. 615. He reached glory by saving from certain annihilation the famous American “Lost Battalion,” commanded by Major Charles S. Whittlesley. This battalion found itself surrounded and under heavy fire. Major Whittlesley had seven pigeons with him. Six were sent sent aloft—to be shot down immediately. Amid Shrapnel. The seventh was -Cher Ami, which rose and circled among bursting shrapnel. Falling feathers told the Major that the bird had been hit. But Cher Ami arrived at his loft, 25 miles away. His breastbone was broken by a piece of shrapnel. His right leg was shot away. But, still fixed to his body, was the aluminium case containing the precious mesage. The “Lost Battalion” was saved. In gratitude the Battalion decided that Cher Ami should be cared for as its most honoured war veteran. He was sent to the South of France to convalesce, and then taken to the United States. To the end of his life this English pigeon was banqueted with the choicest food in visits to all the leading cities of America. His stuffed body is now in a glass case in the Washington National Museum. His biography has been published in book form under the auspices of tlie grateful “Lost Battalion.” One of the. 20,000 pigeons, which was used at Verdun, was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Like Cher Ami, he was badly wounded while carrying a message, says Reuter, but lived to have the decoration bestowed upon it. Most of the war pigeons died in their cages on the ground from gas or bombardment. The monument shows a sturdy peasant, woman, representing France, with a cloud of pigeons rising above her head.