Cher Ami (French for dear friend) was donated to the U.S. Army by a British carrier pigeon breeder.
On the 4th of October 1918 Cher Ami was shot through the chest and leg by the enemy's fire but miraculously still managed to return with a message dangling from its injured leg. The message Cher Ami carried was from Major Charles S. Whittlesey's Lost Battalion from the Seventy-Seventy infantry division. They had been caught between the German line and their own ally who thought they were the enemy. Being shot from both sides, the message Cher Ami was carrying resulted in the survival of 194 soldiers from the battalion.
For his heroic service, Cher Amiwas awarded the French Croix de Guerre with palm. He was returned to the United States and died at Fort Monmouth, N.J. on the 13th of June 1919 as a result of his wounds and are now exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution.