Cher Ami

Cher Ami

Taking off with precious cargo invites German fire right away.

At least let me get airborne before opening up on me you Huns!

I bank right, hoping to avoid the barrage of small-arms fire that doomed my predecessors.

Yet, as I turn the bullets streak past me.

My skin gets goosebumps, my eyes water, and my heart races.

How am I going to get out of here alive?

How am I going to get back to our lines?

How am I going to succeed when others failed?

I turn sharply left, attempting to zig-zag in order to avoid the constant fire.

Just as I finish my zag, a round clips my leg.

AAAaaarrggghhhh!

The shock of the impact sends me fluttering, as I fall to the ground.

I’m not giving up you bastards!

Dangling from a tendon, my injured leg still holds my precious cargo.

I’m going to make it. I’m going to get out of here!

Those huns think they shot me down.

I look up at the sky, waddle on my one good leg, and lift off again, this time aiming straight up.

I’m going to gain altitude, rather than maneuver this time. I just have to get out of range fast!

The fire starts up again.

They’re not giving up, neither will I!

Higher, higher, and higher still, I soar into the sky above the stranded men, and those attempting to destroy them.

The Germans keep up their deadly fire as I rise above it all.

Higher, I must get higher!

A round pierces my breast bone, coming out my left eye. I lose altitude.

I don’t feel the pain. I don’t feel anything. I just need to get to the Command Headquarters at full speed. Nothing else matters!

The bullets stop streaking nearby.

I must be high enough!

Banking again, I head toward headquarters.

Twenty-five miles to go, just twenty-five miles.

My leg begins hurting, the bullet wound in my chest and eye stings.

I must make it, for my boys, I must make it!

I am all they have for hope. Without me, they are doomed.

Before I know it, I see the command headquarters, and my loft just behind the tent.

I fly directly in, not bothering to stop on the perch outside as I enter.

The bell rings, announcing my arrival.

I collapse on the floor of the loft.

I made it. I still have the precious cargo dangling from my shattered leg. My boys will live.

A soldier comes to read the latest message from the front located in the silver canister on my leg. When he sees me with my shattered leg, blood streaming from the bullet wound, and missing eye, he gasps.

“Cher Ami, you’ve returned to us!” he cries out, as he gingerly removes the message from my dangling leg.

I’ve done my job. I made it.

*****

On October 3, 1918, during the Argonne Offensive, Major Charles White Whittlesey [DL1] was trapped with 500 men in a small depression on the side of a hill behind enemy lines with little food or ammunition. They were under constant enemy fire, while also receiving fire from allied artillery who did not know their location. Surrounded by the Germans, many were killed and wounded in the first day and by the second day, more than half of the unit was injured or killed. Whittlesey had three carrier pigeons at his disposal to dispatch messages, but the first and second pigeons were shot down by the Germans before they could make it off the battlefield. Only one homing pigeon was left: "Cher Ami". She was dispatched with a note in a canister on her left leg, “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.”

As Cher Ami took off, she was immediately fired upon by the surrounding Germans. She flew through the unrelenting fire until she was hit and fell to the ground. After a few moments she took flight again, evacuating the battlefield and returning to her loft with her precious cargo in the silver canister attached to her now shattered leg. When she arrived back at her loft at division headquarters 25 miles to the rear in just 25 minutes, she was found to have been shot through the heart, missing one eye, and her leg with the message on it was hanging by a tendon. Despite her injury, her mission was a success. The message she carried helped save the lives of 194 men from her unit.

Cher Ami became the hero of the 77th Infantry Division[DL2] . Army medics endeavored to saver her life, but they could not save her leg. They then carved a small wooden one for her. When she recovered enough to travel, the now one-legged bird was put on a boat to the United States, with General John J. Pershing [DL3] personally seeing Cher Ami off as she departed France.

Cher Ami (French masculine for Dear Friend) was one of approximately 600 homing pigeons donated to the U.S. Army Signal Corps by the pigeon fanciers of Britain. Originally assumed to be male, Cher Ami turned out to be a female pigeon. Upon arriving in the United States, Cher Ami was awarded the Croix de Guerre[DL4]  Medal with a palm Oak Leaf Cluster, for her heroic service in delivering 12 important messages in Verdun. She also received the Silver Star from General Pershing. She died at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, on June 13, 1919 from the wounds she received in battle. Cher Ami was later inducted into the Racing Pigeon Hall of Fame in 1931. She also received a gold medal from the Organized Bodies of American Racing Pigeon Fanciers in recognition of her extraordinary service during World War I.

Cher Ami as displayed in the Smithsonian Museum

Cher Ami is not the only animal recognized for gallantry, or even the only pigeon. Many animals have given their lives in sacrifice to human wars. The United Kingdom recognizes these animals through the Dickin’s Medal, of which there are 32 pigeon recipients from World War II alone.

To American schoolchildren of the 1920s and 1930s, Cher Ami was as well known as any human World War I heroes. Cher Ami's body was later mounted by a taxidermist and enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution[DL5] . It is currently on display with that of Sergeant Stubby[DL6]  in the National Museum of American History[DL7] 's Price of Freedom exhibit.

Hatikvah

“Gli Ingliesi son arrivati!”

Shouts coming from the street penetrate our crowded dark dust and soot covered basement cellar where I wait, nervously, with my sister and parents.

We look at each other through quiet eyes, too scared to make a sound.

“Gli Inglesi son arrivati! Gli Inglesi son arrivati!” echoes down to us again.

Small boys yell through streets where, just moments ago, German troops funneled through, on their way to battle.

Could it be a trick?

I look at my father.

His eyes reveal nothing in the almost pitch blackness of our cellar.

A streak of light flashes across his shadowed face from the crack in the wall revealing the sun-soaked day beyond our little make-shift bunker.

“GLI INGLESI SON ARRIVATI!”

They are nearby, it’s getting louder.

Straining my body so I may place my face next to my father’s, I ask in a whisper “What do you think?”

His eyes dart toward me.

Then, without a word, his head nods up ever so slightly; almost imperceptible in the darkness.

I head his order.

Without thinking because thinking would make me not want to do this, I begin to rise.

Moving my body toward the stairway, I step gingerly, hoping to make as little sound as possible as I peak my head out from the cellar entrance.

Could the English really be here?

Could the Germans really be gone?

As I creep up the stairs I see a man in a dark brown uniform crouching behind a makeshift barricade just beyond the cellar entrance.

A BRITISH SOLDIER!

Turning back to my parents and sister, I motion toward the soldier, whispering “Inglesi!”

Smiles rush to their faces.

We’re saved!

Just as I turn back to look again the soldier also turns, revealing a blue six-sided star on his left shoulder.

He is a Jew!

I gingerly rise out of the cellar, keeping my eyes on the soldier.

Perhaps I can connect with him, even though I do not speak English.

What would he know?

As I rise above the cellar, I begin humming the first few bars of Hatikvah, a popular Jewish poem turned to song I learned before the war.

“Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Daa Da Daaaa”

He eyes me instantly, initially raising his rifle, then lowering it as I rise.

He begins humming along.

A shot rings out in the distance, which doesn’t phase him.

I flinch, but keep up the tune.

Together we hum “Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Da Da Daaaa ”

After the first few bars the soldier begins talking to me in English.

I look at him, lost.

He keeps going, not recognizing I do not speak English until I begin humming again.

“Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Daa Da Daaaa”

Then he stops.

My father rises from the cellar, saying something in yiddish I do not understand.

The soldier responds in yiddish.

They can speak to each other!

This English soldier and my Italian father, speaking yiddish, chat to each other as bullets crackle in the distance.

My father smiles, laughs, reaches out his arms, and hugs the soldier.

Other British soldiers begin peering out of crevices and from other street barricades.

They all have blue six-sided stars on their arms.

We are liberated by fellow Jews!

The shots become less frequent as the hugs and cheers grow.

Yiddish rushes forth from mouth to mouth as the soldiers talk with my dad.

I sit down next to the soldier, I first saw, looking up at him in awe.

Can this be how our war ends?

My father looks down at me, a smile on his face.

Yes.

Many Italian civilians were caught up in the battles to liberate Italy from the Italian Fascists and Germans during World War II. Among these civilians were a good number of Jews. In one instance, being Jewish is what enabled an Italian family to connect with a British soldier of the Jewish Brigade, as the Brigade liberated part of Florence. As quoted from Road to Valor by Aili McConnon:

On Via del Bandino, it was announced by hopeful shouting of local boys, “Gli inglesi son arrivati!” “The English have arrived!” Sitting in the cellar with his parents and sister, Giorgio Goldenberg crept cautiously out to investigate. He was startled to see a British soldier standing right on the street beside his building. On the soldier’s shoulder, he saw a Star of Daivd. Giorgio didn’t speak any English, but wanted desperately to communicate with this man whom he recognized as an ally. So he started singing, at first quietly and then loud enough so that the solder could hear him. He sang the melody of the Hatikvah, a popular Hebrew song that would later become the national anthem of Israel.

The solder recognized the song and burst forth in an excited flurry of English that Giorgio did not understand. Giorgio dashed downstairs to find his father and bring him to street level. His father and the soldier began to speak together in Yiddish. Giorgio watched them happily, a feeling of relief washing over him for the first time in years. “For me, this was the end of the war,” he said later.

Hatikvah later became the national anthem for the newly founded state of Israel.

God's Hand

Staring at me from the table top, these apples look so sweet

Their divine flavor is not for me.

Alas, they will go forth, to a family I rarely see.

My dead boys, who sacrificed everything.

My dear wife and other children, dying of starvation

The only respite, stolen apples from the table of the Kaiser.

Their only relief, sweetness unavailable to the rest of the nation.

Sitting atop the staff, all of whom I appoint.

This war is lost by those who I chose to lead it.

My choices are not mine.

They cannot be.

Just as the apples showed up on the table today,

The hand of god is in everything, even the most unbearable.

If not, then you are lost.

General Moriz von Lyncker was the Chief of the Military Cabinet for Kaiser Wilhelm II throughout World War I. His job was to appoint all who led the German military. As part of the Military Cabinet, General Lyncker was by the Kaiser’s side, sitting at his table during dinners. After one such dinner, upon the departure of the Kaiser, the General noticed apples remaining on the table. Knowing full well they would be taken by another, he seized them for his own family, sending them back home to his wife. He did this because his own family, along with the entire population of war blockaded Germany, was starving. As the scion of a military family himself, General von Lyncker’s sons all went into military service. He lost two of them by the summer of 1917. When his brother-in-law wrote him to say the war was lost, and it was all for nothing, General von Lyncker replied back “If you do not want to see God’s hand in everything, even in the most unbearable, you are lost.”

Sometimes we cannot see our own actions for what brings us suffering. When that happens, we often attribute the suffering to God’s hand. There may be an invisible hand in all things, but it’s our rational choices which bring forth our own realities. General von Lyncker was an advocate of War with Russia and France until 1915, at which point he realized he may have been mistaken. Was his hand forced by God, or simply the norms of the world in which he was raised and lived? Either way, choices matter, and his choices bore consequences, just as all our choices do, every day.

If you do not want to see God’s hand in everything, even in the most unbearable, you are lost.” Experiencing the First World War Alongside Kaiser Wilhelm II. Episode: http://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/chri/ww1/2014-02-25-chri-ww1-5.mp3. Media: http://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/chri/ww1/2014-02-25-chri-ww1-5.mp3. Sent from Podcast Republic.