Happy birthday, Ernie Pyle
On Aug. 3, 1900, Ernie Pyle was born in Dana, Indiana.
The work of America’s best-known war correspondent of the era is central to everything we do here and has long been an inspiration to me as a journalist and history buff. (His words even provided the non-SEO-friendly name for my previous World War II project, The Low Stone Wall.)
While his words have appeared in numerous World War II on Deadline pieces, three of our full-length stories have focused specifically on him. Longtime readers will have seen all three of these before, but it seemed like a good time to reshare them.
Henry T. Waskow and the Ernie Pyle tribute that made him famous
Likely Pyle’s best-known wartime piece, the story of the young officer from Texas cut down in the hills of Italy moved readers from the time it was first published in January 1944 and continues to do so today.
D-Day: Ernie Pyle’s struggle to tell the invasion story
Considering his status among the war correspondents in mid-1944, Pyle played a surprisingly small role in covering the most anticipated story of the war. Though he didn’t get ashore on June 6, 1944 and would not get a column back home for days afterward, the copy he transmitted once he got settled was vintage Pyle.
Ernie Pyle killed on Ie Shima
After everything he had seen in North Africa and Europe, Pyle didn’t particularly want to cover the war in the Pacific, but he felt it was his duty to do so. He didn’t make it back, shot dead on a tiny island off Okinawa on April 18, 1945.