Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
London, England – (by wireless)
If the Army fails to get ashore on D-Day, I think there are enough American correspondents here to force through a beachhead on their own.
There are gray men who covered the last war, and men from the Pacific, and there are little girls and big girls and pretty girls, and diplomatic correspondents and magazine contributors and editors and cubs and novelists. If Dog News doesn’t get a man over here pretty quickly to cover the dog angle of the invasion, I personally will never buy another copy.
At last reports, there were around 300 correspondents here. They say transmission facilities are being set up to carry a maximum of half a million words a day back to America.
While in London, we correspondents can wear either uniforms or civilian clothes. Some correspondents up from Italy have no civilian clothes and can’t get any – since we can’t get British coupons – so they have to wear uniforms constantly.
I am a civilian again for this little interlude, thanks to the old brown suit I left here a year and a half ago. The only trouble is, I get cold if the day is chilly. For the only outer coat I have is a dirty old mackinaw. I can’t wear that with my brown suit, for you can’t mix military and civilian clothing. I can’t wear it with my uniform, for it is nonregulation for city dress, and the MPs would pick me up. And I can’t buy a topcoat, for I can’t get British coupons. So, I just freeze, brother, freeze.
We live where we please, and that is a problem. It’s hard to find a place to live in crowded London. Some correspondents are lucky enough to find apartments or to share apartments with Army officers they know. Others manage to get into hotels.
Through a friend I got into one of London’s finest hotels. Ordinarily you are allowed to stay there only a few days. But, again through the influence of this very influential friend, I think the hotel is going to shut its eyes and let me stay, although nothing has actually been said about it – and I’m afraid to bring up the subject.
Odd feeling of guilt
For the first two days in my luxurious hotel room, I had an odd feeling of guilt. I’m really sincere about it. I felt ashamed, coming from Italy where so many live so miserably, to be sleeping in a beautiful soft bed in a room so tastefully decorated and deeply carpeted, with a big bathroom and constant hot water and three buttons to press to bring running either a waiter, a valet or my mail.
But I find I have a very strong willpower when it comes to readjusting to comfortable life. After a couple of days I said, “Boy, take it while you can get it,” and I don’t feel the least bit ashamed anymore.
Most correspondents who were through the campaigns in Africa, Sicily and Italy are up here now, and we feel like a sort of little family among all the new ones here.
Before I arrived, they had a big banquet for the correspondents who had been in the Mediterranean. There has been no general get-together since I got here, but a few of us call each other up and get together for a meal.
Most correspondents base on London and work out to the camps or airfields on trips of a few days each, then come back to write their stuff and wait on the invasion.
A vast Army Public Relations Branch occupied one huge four-story building and overflows into several others. They have set up a “correspondents’ room” as a sort of central headquarters for us. We get our mail there, and we go there to ask questions, and get various problems worked out, and meet each other.
Mail comes through fast
The mail, incidentally, is a revelation here. In the Mediterranean, the average letter took at least two weeks and a half to come from the States, and most of it much longer. Up here half of my mail is coming through in a week. I even have had one letter in five days, and the longest has been only two weeks on the way.
Obviously, no correspondent knows when the invasion will be or where. I imagine you could count on your fingers all the Army officers in England who know. All we correspondents can do is be ready.
Only a few will go in on the initial invasion or in the early stages. Some of the eager ones have tried to pull strings to get front seats in the invasion armada. Others with better judgment have just kept quiet and let matters take their course. Personally, I am trying to get accredited to the British Home Guard to help defend the mid-England town of Burford from German attack.
