The Pittsburgh Press (January 17, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
I was really starting to worry. Here I’d been in Italy a month and I was continuing to feel fine. What was going to become of my record of being sick in every country I’d ever set foot on? Could I be slipping in my old age?
But it’s all right now. I knew how to fix that. I just took a bath, and sure enough next day I started to sniffle. By neglecting the snuffles for the next two days, I promoted myself a first-class cold. And now everything is fine.
The only trouble with this cold is that I can’t find anything funny to write about it. I’ve moved into town for my convalescence, have a nice room in an apartment house, have good food and several friends, and don’t even feel too badly.
The only reason I’m mentioning it at all is just to let you know my record is intact. I’m ashamed not to have had a really bad sickness, but maybe I can do better when we hit Germany.
While sick I stayed at the apartment of some Air Force friends. Pilots from the various fields drop in there when they’re in town on leave. One of them is Maj. Edwin A. Bland Jr., commander of a bomber squadron.
Ed almost got his’n
Ed Bland is a tall, friendly fellow with blond haircut in crew style. He loves to fly and is torn between flying after the war or going back to Colorado and settling down to enjoy the mountains.
Ed almost got his’n a couple of weeks ago. These boys dive absolutely straight down at their target for about 8,000 feet and pull out at very low altitudes. This certain day, Ed couldn’t get his plane out of the dive.
The tab on his rubber had either been shot or torn loose by the pressure of the dive. The stick vibrated so violently that it flew out of his hands and he lost control.
The only chance of saving himself was to get hold of that stick again. I asked him if it was vibrating so fast he couldn’t grab it. He said, “Hell, it was going so fast I couldn’t even see it.” And he meant it.
So, Ed clasped his hands, reached clear up to the dash, then lowered his hands toward the cockpit floor and drew the, back toward him. He knew the stick had to be somewhere inside the circle of his arms.
As he gradually pulled back, the stick beat upon his hands and arms with killing pain, but he kept going back until finally he had hold of it. The infernally flailing stick hit with such fury it literally pulled a big hunk of flesh out of the palm of his hand, but he finally got the plane out of the dive, just by brute strength.
He was only 400 feet above the ground when he leveled off. It was as narrow an escape as a man ever wants to have. Ed said:
I thought it was my time. I figured my number had come up, and I sort of said goodbye to everybody.
In the summer of 1941, I decided to get a new car. As usual I wanted a convertible. The Pontiac dealer in Albuquerque didn’t have a convertible but said he could have one sent from the district agency in Pueblo, Colorado.
Memorable convertible
So, three days later the shiny convertible arrived. It was a beauty and is still a beauty, even though it has spent half its life sitting in storage. But I’m happy just to have to anyhow, and it is often in my thoughts the way your wife, or your fireplace at home, or your dog, is often in your thoughts.
Now what, you are probably asking, does a convertible coupe in Albuquerque have to do with a dive-bomber pilot in Italy?
Well, when Maj. Ed Bland came to our apartment, he told me about that car. It seems that in the spring of 1941 he was a salesman for the Pontiac people in Pueblo.
They had just one convertible left, and salesman Ed had it all sold and was ready to deliver it next day. And then came word that the Albuquerque dealer wanted that car to deliver to me. So, they took it away from Ed and he thereby lost his $80 commission. He was so disgusted he joined the Army a month later.
I said:
Well, it looks as if I owe you 80 bucks, to be real ethical about it.
But Ed just laughed, and I didn’t have 80 bucks with me anyhow. And one thing led to another until we became good friends, and it wound up that I’m going out to live with Maj. Bland’s dive-bomber boys for a few days.