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Pigeon Message from the "Lost Battalion"

Pigeon Message from Capt. Whittlesey to the Commanding Officer of the 308th Infantry, 10/04/1918  (detail)
During World War I, the U.S. Seventy-seventh Infantry Division attacked the Germans near Charlevaux, France. Only one unit penetrated enemy lines: Maj. Charles W. Whittlesay’s First Battalion of the 308th Infantry Regiment. The battalion was quickly surrounded by Germans – and then came under friendly fire from its own artillery. Whittlesay used his last carrier pigeon to send this three-sentence plea: "We are along the road paralell 276.4. Our artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heavens sake stop it."

More "Reports from the Front" in Prologue

Today’s Document from the National Archives

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