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Lost Battalion

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AOP

In Remembrance 2023
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The Military History Channel just played the movie "Lost Battalion". Rick Schroder as Major Charles Whittlesey. I feel a special affinity to that story.

The roughly 550 men of the 308th IR, 77th Infantry Division advanced on the German Front in the Argonne and took the high ground before they were stopped by heavy resistance. Unknown to Whittlesey, the French on their left and the other US division on their right were stopped before the 1st Bn 308th IR was, so they were quickly surrounded by the Germans. Over the next several days, the 77th lost over 750 men trying to relieve the battalion. A misunderstanding led to American artillery shelling their own men until the one surviving carrier pigeon was used to alert the US command of the friendly fire incident. "Cher Ami" ( Dear Friend) was the name of the female Carrier Pigeon who saved so many lives. She was severely wounded in her flight to the US lines, with a wing badly struck by rifle fire and one leg shot away. The artillery barrage was immediately stopped. It wasn't until American fliers, most likely in SPADs, were able to spot the unit that a relief column finally got through. By the time they got there however, 154 were dead, and 150 missing.

Major Whittlesey visited the site after the war. One night on the ship returning home, Charles Whittlesey went out for a walk on deck of the ship he was sailing on. He was found to be missing the following morning.

Being a disabled veteran, I started at the Smithsonian American History Museum in the Security detail. I later moved to Air and Space. One of the first things I did was escort Curators up and down the public elevator in moving artifacts into storage so a new exhibit could be assembled on the third floor. It required a special key to reach the storage area on the subfloor. One trip, the curators had piled a few items, animal carcasses, and assorted other stuff, on a cart, and when they boarded the elevator, the cart ran over the gap in the floor and it jostled the things on the cart. One of the birds fell off and I reflexively caught it, and the curators yelled at me for not wearing white gloves to touch the bird carcass. I said, "Yeah, I probably should have let it get smashed". They were not amused.

I looked at the bird and it was in pretty sad shape with a wing messed up and only one leg. I had no idea what it was, other than a bird. There was a little brass tag on the wooden stand it was mounted on. It was "Cher Ami". I still get choked up when I see that scene in the movie. Cher Ami was as famous a hero after WWI as Eddie Rickenbacker. She's all but forgotten now.

It was air observation that ultimately saved what was left of the 308th. They didn't have L-4s.
 

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