On April 15th 1918, near Rheims in France, the bodies of two dead American soldiers were scattered around the trenches. The American army's messenger unit used carrier pigeons to send messages because the telephone lines had been cut.

   On April 15th 1918, near Rheims in France, the bodies of two dead American soldiers were scattered around the walls of a trench. The American army's signal corps used carrier pigeons to send messages because the telephone lines had been cut. In the trenches on the front line of World War I, the American army's signal corps sent messages by carrier pigeon because the telephone lines had been cut by German shells. Even with the violence and persistence of the bombing that destroyed the ground troops and telephone and telegraph networks, and prevented the carrier pigeons, the carrier pigeon communication method was chosen at the expense of other carrier pigeons.

   Pigeons were used in armed conflicts. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, European armies established pigeon squadrons. It is estimated that the death, injury and disappearance rate of pigeons during World War I did not exceed 5%. By the end of World War I, thousands of pigeon houses were being used on the Western Front. The US Army had 20,000 pigeons, the Italian Army had 50,000, the French Army had 60,000, and the German Army had 150,000. Only around 5% of pigeons died during their missions during the war. The French Army even awarded medals to pigeons that had died after carrying messages during the Battle of Verdun.

   In September 1870, during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, an estimated 800 carrier pigeons sent over 40,000 messages. On March 26, 1896, a French shipping company sent pigeons across the sea for the first time. 80 pigeons were released from a steamship in groups of three. In 1912, small cameras were attached to birds using harnesses and used by photographers. From February to March 1917, the German army used carrier pigeons to communicate with the front line , and retreated to the Hindenburg Line. On October 4th 1918, the carrier pigeon Cher Ami saved the lives of 194 French soldiers. The pigeon was awarded the French Croix de Guerre and the Palme for its heroic achievement.