The Pittsburgh Press (February 15, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
He couldn’t even talk about his operation!
From a letter sent to Ernie Pyle by a newsreel cameraman, hospitalized in Italy:
Dear Ernie:
When they wheeled me in here, I felt like a slow-motion tennis ball going over the net at Forest Hills. Everybody’s head moved from left to right, and vice versa on the other side of the ward.
You see, the hospital grapevine or village tom-toms had given out the news that a war correspondent was being wheeled in. I understand the tension was terrific until I came out of the morphia. The first question all and sundry asked me was not how I felt or what was wrong with me but – did I know Ernie Pyle.
When I said I knew him slightly, I became quite popular, and questions flew right and left.
This note is to ask you to come over for a few minutes and say hello to some of these broken lads. It would please them beyond description, and there are many things and incidents here that would interest you as well.
Considering the cubic content of suffering within the four walls, it really is a very happy dump.
In Italy – (by wireless)
For several days, I’ve been living with an infantry company of the 34th Division. The 34th is the oldest division on this side of the Atlantic. It has been away from home two full years.
Two years is a long time overseas, even if you do nothing but travel around and work hard. But when, in addition, you fill two years with campaign after bitter campaign, a division of men eventually becomes wise and worn and old, like a much-read book or a cottage that wears its aging stone stoutly, ignoring the patchwork of new concrete that holds it together.
Today, in any frontline rifle company of around 200 men in the 34th, you find usually fewer than a dozen men who came overseas with the division originally. In one battalion, not a single one of the original officers is left.
That doesn’t mean they’ve all been killed, but it does mean that through casualties of all sorts, plus sickness and transfer and some small rotation back to the States, a division has almost a complete turnover in two years of fighting. Only its number remains the same. But even a number can come to have character and life, to those who are intimate with its heritage. I was with the 34th as long as June of 1942, in Ireland, and I have a feeling about it.
Remarkable Lt. Jack Sheehy
I came to the regimental command post in a jeep after dark one night.
Regimental handed me down to battalion, and battalion on down to the company I was to stay with. They were bivouacked for the moment in an olive grove, with their company command post in a stone Italian farmhouse – the first time their CP had been inside walls since they hit Italy five months ago.
The company commander is Lt. John J. Sheehy of New York City. The division was originally all Iowa and Minnesota men, but now you’ll find men from everywhere. The Iowans are the veterans, however, and they still stand out.
Jack Sheehy is tall and thin, and quite young, and of course he’s Irish. In the regiment, he is considered pretty remarkable. Any time you mention him among higher officers, they nod and say:
Yes, Sheehy is a case.
I don’t know exactly what causes this, but I gather from innuendo that he is addicted to using his noggin in spectacular ways in the pinches, and that he fears neither German soldiers nor American brass hats. He is an extremely likable and respected company commander.
Proud of men, and vice versa
Lt. Sheehy used to be a clerk for American Airlines in New York. He says that after the war he’s going into salesmanship of some kind, because he figures his gift of gab will carry him through – which surprised me, because during all the time I was with him, he was far from garrulous, but actually very kind and reserved.
I’ve never seen a man prouder of his company than Lt. Sheehy, and the men in it are proud, too. I’ve been around war long enough to know that nine-tenths of morale is pride in your outfit and confidence in your leader and fellow fighters.
A lot of people have morale confused with the desire to fight. I don’t know of one soldier in 10,000 who wants to fight. They certainly don’t in my company. The old-timers are sick to death of battle, and the new replacements are scared to death of it. And yet the company goes on into battle, and it is a proud company.