10 Incredible Animal War Heroes

On 3 October 1918, Major Charles White Whittlesey and his lost battalion were stuck behind enemy lines. They had neither food nor ammunition. As if things couldn’t get any worse, Whittlesey and his men started being shelled by Allied troops.

They couldn’t exactly speak up due to their whole situation of being surrounded by Germans. This is 1918 so there were no phones and the radio didn’t exactly work over long ranges. So, homing pigeons to the rescue. But German marksmen blasted those birds right out of the sky. With machine guns, no less.

With all hope nearly lost, Whittlesey sent out his last bird, Cher Ami. It was a simple message to the Allies, “We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven's sake stop it.” Then he prayed. Hard. Probably.

The Germans aimed their machine guns at the little bird and fired. Again and again, Cher Ami got shot down but she took off again. She flew 40 kilometres and delivered the message 25 minutes later.

She had been shot in the breast, blinded in one eye and had one of her legs hanging by a single tendon when she landed at the Allied camp. Her injuries were not in vain. She saved the lives of 194 men that day.