Ernest Taylor Pyle was a U.S. newspaperman, journalist, author and Pulitzer Prize winner. He was one of the most famous war correspondents of World War II, and is best remembered for his vivid descriptions of the human spirit in the face of the brutality and pathos of war. Pyle referred to himself as a 'simple Hoosier, a farm boy from Dana, Indiana.' As a syndicated columnist, he wrote what he thought friends at home would enjoy. As it turned out, it was what millions nationwide wanted to read.

Ernie was born to Will and Maria (Taylor) Pyle near Dana, Indiana on August 3, 1900. Pyle spent his childhood 'mud-crawling in cricks' throughout Helt Township in Vermillion County, Indiana, riding his sorrel horse Cricket and hunting with constant canine companion Shep. From the time his Aunt Mary took him to see a circus in Terre Haute in 1908, the red-head yearned to see the entire world and its marvels.

JOURNALISM CALLS
In 1919, he studied journalism in college at Indiana University. While at the university, he joined the Naval Reserve and was an active participant. During his tenure with the Naval Reserve, he served on the U.S.S. Wilmette, formerly the Eastland. By 1922, the summer before his senior year, he became the editor-in-chief for the Indiana Daily Student. When he left college months before graduating to become a reporter for the LaPorte (Indiana) Herald, he could not have imagined that the building housing IU’s journalism school would one day be named 'Ernie Pyle Hall.'

After accepting a position as telegraph editor for the Washington Daily News of the Scripps-Howard chain, Pyle met Geraldine 'Jerry' Siebolds, a Minnesota native. They were married in 1925. Life in the nation’s capitol was exciting after Pyle created a popular column on aviation, but when he was promoted to managing editor in 1932, his creative typewriter was mute. He sought leave to become a roving reporter in 1935. The syndicated column which resulted permitted him to see the world and write about people from all walks of life. He traveled the countryside in a Rambler and crafted his column around the lives of ordinary folks coping with the Depression. His column eventually appeared in as many as 200 newspapers. The Pyle's purchased a small house in Albuquerque, New Mexico that Ernie called home. His travel schedule imposed undue stress upon his marriage. Ernie and Jerry eventually divorced, but they still remained committed to each other.

WORLD WAR II
Soon after World War II began, Ernie was there, sharing foxholes and fears with American soldiers, first in Europe and later in the Pacific. For many at home, Ernie Pyle's columns were the real story of World War II, the story of sons and husbands living a deadly adventure day by day in a foreign land. Compilations of his columns appeared in book form: Ernie Pyle in England (1941); Here Is Your War (1943); Brave Men (1944); Last Chapter (1946). His coverage of the campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France brought him a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in 1944, as well as several other awards. He was with the U. S. forces in the Pacific on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. On April 18, 1945, during the Okinawa campaign, he was visiting the nearby island of Ie Shema in the Ryukyu Islands. A Japanese sniper fired at his jeep and Pyle took cover in a ditch. When he raised his head to look for one of the soldiers who was with him, he was killed instantly.

Ernie Pyle was laid to a hero's rest at the Punchbowl Memorial Cemetery (National Cemetery of the Pacific) in Honolulu, Hawaii. Ernie's former employer continues to honor him through the efforts of the Scripps Howard Foundation which made his birthplace in Dana, Indiana a national historic attraction.

Ernie Pyle always wrote about the people who matter, not the people who think they matter.

EXCERPT FROM HOME COUNTRY (pp. 136-137)
"The ship stopped at Mackinac Island for two hours. This was my second visit there. The first one was in June of 1921, during the time I was a member of the Naval Reserve. That summer, having nothing else to do, I dug my sailor pants out of the attic and went to Chicago for a three weeks' Naval Reserve training cruise.

We sailed on the USS Wilmette, formerly known as the Eastland. It was the ship that turned over in the Chicago River in 1915 and drowned eight hundred twelve people. When it was raised, the Navy bought it and painted it gray and filled it full of innocent farm boys who wanted to be sailors. It was still in a sinking condition, I assure you. It constantly shied to the right, and once in a while felt as though it wanted to lie down in the water.

But anyhow, it did carry us to Mackinac Island where we tied up for a full day. By this time I had rapidly risen in the ranks from mere seaman to the exalted position of second-class cook. That entitled me to stay on board all the time we were at Mackinac, frying pork chops. I had to start at two in the afternoon to get all the pork chops fried for the evening chow. I would fry two huge skillets full at a time, and when they were done I would dump them in a washtub. I had two tubs full by evening. It was hotter than a Kansas prarie fire on board the Wilmette that afternoon, and the galley was twice as hot as that. I was working without a shirt, and a dirty apron was tied around my waist. Grease kept popping on my arms and face. I looked like a pork chop.

The Navy loves a show, so it had thrown the ship open to visitors that afternoon and hundreds of vacationists at Mackinac came aboard. All afternoon they filed around the decks. The galley happened to be on the main deck, and visitors could stop and look right in the galley door at the funny man frying pork chops. A lot of them did. It gave them, I am sure, a great deal of entertainment. But I didn't care. They would look and pass on, right out of the cook's life.

But gradually I became aware that somebody had been standing in the door a long time without moving on with the rest of the crowd. I turned around and looked. And who do you suppose it was? Admiral Farragut? No. Mrs. Roosevelt? No. The governor of Michigan? No.

It was a girl friend of mine from college, and she was standing there laughing at me.

That's all there is to the story. I'm sorry I started it. It would have been a much better story if I had been in love with her, but I wasn't. I think we just talked for a while, and then she got off the ship, and I saw her in school that fall and we probably never spoke of it again."

FURTHER READING
Ernie Pyle in England by Ernie Pyle. American Book-Stratford Press, Inc. (1941).
Home Country by Ernie Pyle. William Sloane Associates (1935).
Here Is Your War: Story of G.I. Joe by Ernie Pyle. World Publishing Company (1945).
Brave Men by Ernie Pyle. Henry Holt & Company (1943).
Ernie's War: The Best of Ernie Pyle's World War II Dispatches
Edited by David Nichols, Random House (1986).
Ernie's America: The Best of Ernie Pyle's 1930s Travel Dispatches
Edited by David Nichols, Random House (1989).
Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II
by James Tobin. Free Press (1997).
On a Wing and a Prayer: The Aviation Columns of Ernie Pyle
Edited by Mike Harden and Evelyn Hobson (1995).
Ernie Pyle in the American Southwest by Richard Melzer. Sun Stone Press (1996).
The Story of Ernie Pyle by Lee G. Miller. Viking Press (1950).

THE STORY OF G.I. JOE (1945)
As they march into yet another devastated Italian town, one of the soldiers of Company C neatly sums up the average infantryman's experience of World War II: "When this war's over, I'm gonna buy me a map and find out where I've been." Released less than three months after the German surrender, The Story of G.I. Joe is a gritty portrayal of the reality of war: defeat as well as victory, blood and mud as well as glory.

William Wellman's film was based on the newspaper columns of war correspondent Ernie Pyle (played by Burgess Meredith), and through him we get to know a small group of ordinary infantrymen as he follows them from North Africa into Italy. They're led by Captain Bill Walker (Robert Mitchum), who claims he earned his rank by living longer than the other lieutenants, and Sergeant Warnicki (Freddie Steele), a tough, gruff career soldier who carries a carefully wrapped recording of his son's voice across Italy in search of a gramophone. The soldiers--many played by real veterans of the Italian campaign--mature as we get to know them, becoming battle-hardened but increasingly exhausted.

Meredith is effective as Pyle, who quickly becomes something of a company mascot. He earns the respect of the GIs by sticking around when the shells start to fly, and he becomes an even bigger hit when he brings them all turkey and cigars at Christmas. But if this quintessential ensemble piece belongs to anyone, it's Mitchum as the battle-weary C.O. Fiercely loyal to his men, he feels every death as a personal loss but refuses to flinch from his duty. Mitchum brings an extraordinary depth of emotion to his performance, and he received a well-deserved Oscar nomination.

Much of the film's strength lies in the contrast between the human side of war--bored men trying to stay sane in cramped dugouts--and the inhuman randomness of its destruction. After every battle, ambush, or artillery attack there's a terrible moment when we wait to see who is dead--"We lost three," says Sergeant Warnicki as a few men stagger in from a patrol. The nerve-shatteringly realistic battle sequences bring to mind Saving Private Ryan, and The Story of G.I. Joe is a strong competitor with Spielberg's acclaimed film for the title of greatest-ever war movie.

Several of the soldiers who appear in the film, along with Ernie Pyle himself, died in action before The Story of G.I. Joe was released. Fifty-five years later it still stands as a memorial to them and to all of the ordinary men and women who died in World War II.