Roving Reporter, Ernie Pyle

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 4, 1944)

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

In France – (by wireless)
The last time I was with the frontline medics – a battalion detachment in the 4th Division – they showed me a piece in The Stars and Stripes about Congress passing the new $10-a-month pay increase for soldiers holding the Combat Infantrymen’s Badge.

This Combat Infantry Badge is a proud thing, a mark of great distinction, a sign on a man’s chest to show that he has been through the mill. The medical aidmen were feeling badly because the piece said they were not eligible for the badge.

Their captain asked me what I thought, and so did some of the enlisted aidmen. And I could tell them truthfully that my feelings agreed with theirs. They should have it. And I’m sure any combat infantryman would tell you the same thing.

Praise for the medics has been unanimous ever since this war started. And just as proof of what they go through, take this one detachment of battalion medics that I was with.

They were 31 men and two officers. And in one seven-week period of combat in Normandy this summer, they lost nine men killed and ten wounded. A total of 19 out of 33 men – a casualty ratio of nearly 60 percent in seven weeks!

Special badge suggested

As one aidman said, probably they have been excluded because they are technically noncombatants and don’t carry arms. But he suggested that if this was true, they could still be given a badge with some distinctive medical marking on it, to set them off from medical aidmen who don’t work right in the lines.

So, I would like to propose to Congress or the War Department or whoever handles such things that the ruling be altered to include medical aidmen in battalion detachments and on forward.

They are the ones who work under fire. Medics attached to regiments and to hospitals farther back do wonderful work too, of course, and are sometimes under shellfire. But they are seldom right out on the battlefield. So, I think it would be fair to include only the medics who work from battalion on forward.

I have an idea the original ruling was made merely through a misunderstanding, and that there would be no objection to correcting it.

You must hear about my new stove. You may remember that last winter in Italy we mentioned how practical and wonderful the little Coleman gasoline stove was for soldiers in the field. Well, that remark had repercussions.

It seems the employees of the Coleman Stove Company, in Wichita, Kansas, were very pleased. It made them feel that they were doing something worthwhile for the war So, in appreciation, they decided to make up a special stove as a gift for me.

Engraved like a loving cup

We kept hearing about it over here for weeks, and waited for it the way children wait for Christmas. The other correspondents were as excited about it as I was.

At last, it came. Boy, you should see it. It is an exact duplicate of the regular stove, except that this one is all hand-made and chromium-plated and has my name engraved on it, like a loving cup.

One of the correspondents said, “You can’t light that, it’s too pretty.”

An Army colonel said, “They should have sent a fireplace and a mantel along for you to exhibit it on.”

For days there was a line of soldiers and correspondents at my tent wanting to see the stove. Twice we got ready to light it while photographers took pictures, but at the last minute we couldn’t bear to, and put it away. The boys all kidded me and said they bet I never would light it.

Necessity finally drove me to it. That was in Paris. I had given my old stove to a friend, thinking I wouldn’t need one any more. But the eating situation in Paris was drastic at first, and we had only the rations we brought with us individually.

So, at last I had to break down and light my stove in a hotel room in Paris. Some of the boys had joked and said it was so beautiful it probably wouldn’t work. But it did. It practically melted the hotel walls down.

So, to all of you who had a hand in the stove, my thanks and gratitude. But if this keeps up, I’ll have to be careful about admiring in print any Baldwin locomotives or steam-shovels.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 5, 1944)

British pilot Pyle found recovering in RAF hospital

Washington –
The courageous British pilot, found by Ernie Pyle and a group of American soldiers in Normandy after he had been lying, wounded and trapped, in his plane for eight days without food or water, is recovering from his terrible ordeal.

After treatment in an American hospital, he was transferred to an RAF hospital, where he “is resting comfortably and progressing satisfactorily,” the British Information Service here said.

The pilot, Lt. Robert Gordon Lee, is expected to be in the hospital three months, he suffered a compound fracture of the left leg and numerous bullet wounds when his plane was shot down.

Lt. Lee had tried to land his plane in a field and it flipped upside down, trapping him. He wrapped his handkerchief around a wound in his hand and then thrust his hand through a small hole in the side of the pane and waved it to attract attention.

On the eighth day, American soldiers, riding by in a jeep, noticed the movement of the handkerchief, investigated, and in a few hours the pilot was rescued.

Ernie Pyle called Lt. Lee’s calm fortitude during that long period of suffering “one of the really great demonstrations of courage in this war.”

[NormanStewart]

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Paris, France – (by wireless)
This is the last of these columns from Europe. By the time you read this, the old man will be on his way back to America. After that will come a long, long rest. And after the rest – well, you never can tell.

Undoubtedly this seems to you to be a funny time for a fellow to be quitting the war. It is a funny time. But I’m not leaving because of a whim, or even especially because I’m homesick.

I’m leaving for one reason only – because I have just got to stop. “I’ve had it,” as they say in the Army. I have had all I can take for a while.

I’ve been 29 months overseas since this war started; have written around 700,000 words about it; have totaled nearly a year in the frontlines.

I do hate terribly to leave right now, but I have given out. I’ve been immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused. The hurt has finally become too great.

All of a sudden it seemed to me that if I heard one more shot or saw one more dead man, I would go off my nut. And if I had to write one more column I’d collapse. So, I’m on my way.

It may be that a few months of peace will restore some vim to my spirit, and I can go war-horsing off to the Pacific. We’ll see what a little New Mexico sunshine does along that line.

Couldn’t get around to all the branches

Even after two and a half years of war writing, there still is a lot I would like to tell. I wish right now that I could tell you about our gigantic and staggering supply system that keeps these great armies moving.

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get around to many branches of service that so often are neglected. I would like to have written about the Transportation Corps and the airport engineers and the wire stringers and the chemical mortars and the port battalions. To all of those that I have missed, my apologies. But the Army over here is just too big to cover it all.

I know the first question everyone will ask when I get home is: “When will the war be over?”

So, I’ll answer even before you ask me, and the answer is: “I don’t know.”

We all hope and most of us think it won’t be long now. And yet there’s a possibility of it going on and on, even after we are deep in Germany. The Germans are desperate and their leaders have nothing to quit for.

Every day the war continues is another hideous blackmark against the German nation. They are beaten and yet they haven’t quit. Every life lost from here on is a life lost to no purpose.

If Germany does deliberately drag their war on and on, she will so infuriate the world by her inhuman bullheadedness that she is apt to be committing national suicide.

Germans show their real cruelty

In our other campaigns we felt we were fighting, on the whole, a pretty good people. But we don’t feel that way now. A change has occurred. On the Western Front, the Germans have shown their real cruelty of mind. We didn’t used to hate them, but we do now.

The outstanding figure on this Western Front is Lt. Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley. He is so modest and sincere that he probably will not get his proper credit, except in military textbooks.

But he has proved himself a great general in every sense of the word. And as a human being, he is just as great. Having him in command has been a blessed good fortune for America.

I cannot help but feel bad about leaving. Even hating the whole business as much as I do, you come to be a part of it. And you leave some of yourself here when you depart. Being with the American soldier has been a rich experience.

To the thousands of them that I know personally and the other hundreds of thousands for who I have had the humble privilege of being a sort of mouthpiece, this then is to say goodbye – and good luck.

[adamsano]

Ernie has experienced far more war compared to the many units he was embedded within. He has provided a needed role to inform American and world citizens with a realistic view of war that no one could imagine. Everyone wishes him well as he rests and recuperates. Ernie, well done and thank you for your service to us.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 9, 1944)

Senator praises Ernie Pyle’s work

Washington (UP) –
Senator Carl A. Hatch (D-NM) yesterday praised the work of Scripps-Howard correspondent Ernie Pyle as “performed magnificently and bravely.”

Senator Hatch read to the Senate the last dispatch filed by Mr. Pyle from France, in which he said he hated “terribly to leave right now, but if I had to write on more column, I’d collapse.”

Senator Hatch said:

Personally, I regret his leaving the war just on the eve of victory, but as one of his admirers I am glad he’s returning to our state of New Mexico where the sunshine will fully heal war’s cruel hurt.

Senator Hatch predicted that after Mr. Pyle rests a while, he “will go war-horsing to some far distant island to describe the conditions under which our sons fight and die that the sons of all men may be free.”

“I take this opportunity to express my own appreciation of his great work,” Senator Hatch said.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (October 26, 1944)

Ernie Pyle gets doctor’s degree

Albuquerque, New Mexico (UP) –
The servicemen’s “representative to the folks back home” – war correspondent Ernie Pyle – was awarded an honorary degree of doctor of letters at the University of New Mexico’s fall commencement exercises yesterday.

Pyle, recently returned from Europe, was presented for the degree by Dean George Hammond of the university’s graduate school, who said:

Peoples of the United States – in fact, the whole world – have come to know Ernie Pyle as a roving reporter during the present World War, writer of keen observation, tireless energy and a faithful and sympathetic nature.

He followed the soldiers around, wherever they were and, in his writings, became their representative to the folks back home.

The veteran Scripps-Howard correspondent received the degree with his usual modesty. He had said in advance of the ceremony that he didn’t think he deserved to be awarded the honorary degree.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (October 27, 1944)

B. Meredith to play role

Prize role set for noted actor

The question uppermost in the minds of Ernie Pyle’s army of devoted admirers – “Who’ll play him on the screen?” – was settled definitely today by film producer Lester Cowan in a long distance telephone call to The Pittsburgh Press.

“The Pyle role goes to Capt. Burgess Meredith, assigned to inactive duty by the Army,” announced Mr. Cowan, who is producing G.I. Joe, based on Ernie’s book, Here Is Your War.

Mr. Cowan continued:

Buzz [Meredith] is the same height as Ernie, has his general build and is within 10 pounds of Ernie’s weight. After many months of consideration – for we have to please about 20 million people, including the thousands of doughboys who know Ernie – we have finally decided on Meredith.

Meredith is a fine actor and sensitive enough to create a life-like portrayal of Ernie on the screen.

Will study Ernie

Mr. Cowan said that the choice has Ernie’s approval and that Meredith will go to New Mexico immediately to stay with the famous war correspondent in order to study Ernie at close range.

The actor became famous on Broadway before going to Hollywood, appearing in such notable plays as Maxwell Anderson’s Winterset, High Tor and Star Wagon. He appeared at the local Nixon in two of these plays.

Four other big-name stars were under consideration – James Gleason, Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan and Fred Astaire. In addition, at least 500 unknowns were candidates. Of the latter Pittsburgh’s Rosey Roswell was the outstanding.

Rosey nearly ‘in’

Rosey, about two months ago, sped by plane to Hollywood on Mr. Cowan’s request. There the radio announcer took a screen test and the results were encouraging – so much so that for a while it seemed Rosey would win the coveted assignment. However, a switch in directors caused Cowan to reconsider and it was decided to cast a famous actor.

William A. Wellman, an Academy Award winner, is directing the production. Mr. Wellman’s first choice was Fred Astaire – but he was “voted down” by popular opinion which held “Ernie’s no dancer, and a famous dancer in the role would ruin the illusion.”

In 1942, Meredith became a private in the Army. A series of promotions elevated him to a captain’s rank. He was assigned to Allied headquarters in Europe, where he wrote, produced and acted in two training films.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (November 13, 1944)

Pyle honored by Indiana University

Bloomington, Indiana (UP) –
Ernie Pyle, Scripps-Howard war correspondent, came back home again to Indiana today to receive an honorary degree from Indiana University as “an accurate reporter with a yen to write about common people and ordinary things.”

From the university, his alma mater, Pyle received the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters. It was his second honorary degree within a month, the University of New Mexico having granted him one earlier.

In the audience were his father, William C. Pyle, and his “Aunt Mary” Bales, who came to Bloomington from their home at Dana, Indiana, for the ceremony.

President Herman B. Wells of Indiana University conferred the degree.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (November 15, 1944)

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (November 21, 1944)

Editorial: Stampede!

By Ernie Pyle

The Treasury Department asked Ernie Pyle to write a special article for use in the Sixth War Loan Drive. The most appropriate place to publish it, it seems to us, is this editorial column. Here it is:

This little piece comes more in the blood-bank category than in the bond-buying one, yet if you’ll apply it to your bond-buying, it may help save a great deal of blood.

This fall I came home from France on a ship that carried 1,000 of our wounded American soldiers. About a fourth of them were terribly wounded stretcher cases. The rest were up and about. These others could walk, though among the walking were many legs and arms missing, many eyes that could not see.

Well, there was one hospitalized soldier who was near death on this trip. He was wounded internally, and the Army doctors were trying desperately to keep him alive until we got to America. They operated several times, and they kept pouring plasma and whole blood into him constantly, until they ran out of whole blood.

I happened to be in the head doctor’s cabin at noon one day when he was talking about this boy. He said he had his other doctors at that moment going around the ship typing blood specimens from several of the ship’s officers, and from unwounded Army and Navy officers aboard. They were doing it almost surreptitiously, for they didn’t want it to get out that they needed blood.

And why didn’t they want it to get out? Because if it had, there would have been a stampede to the hospital ward by the other wounded men, offering their blood to this dying comrade. Think of that – a stampede of men themselves badly wounded, wanting to give their blood!

If they, who had already given so much, were willing to give even more for their fellow men, isn’t it the least we can do for those fellow men still fighting to stampede to the bond counter?

[NormanStewart]

Vorarlberger Tagblatt (November 27, 1944)

Unsere Meinung: Er hat genug

Der amerikanische Kriegskorrespondent Ernie Pyle hat bisher 700.000 Worte über den Krieg gekabelt. Das hören wir von der amerikanischen Zeitschrift Life, die über Pyle sagt, er sei derjenige amerikanische Journalist, der die Empfindungen des einfachen Durchschnitts-amerikaners am besten mitfühle und am anschaulichsten wiedergebe.

Jetzt hat sich Pyle von der Kriegsberichterstattung zurückgezogen. An Bord eines Lazarettschiffes fährt er in die Staaten heim.

Was hat ihn bewogen, nicht noch weitere 700.000 Worte über den Krieg zu kabeln?

Pyle gibt eine Erklärung dafür. Er sagt:

Ich bin zu Ende. Meine geistige Ermüdung ist zu groß. Es sind Zuviel verwirrende, nachdenklich machende Eindrücke bei diesem Westfeldzug auf mich eingedrungen. Ich hatte das Gefühl, ich würde zusammenbrechen, wenn ich über diesen Krieg seit Beginn der Invasion noch einen weiteren Artikel schreiben sollte.

Dem Kriegsberichter Pyle scheint allesmögliche, aufgefallen zu sein bei diesem Westfeldzug des Generals Eisenhower. Darum ist er nachdenklich geworden. Er meint, es sei genug, wenn 700.000 Worte über diese Sache geschrieben worden sind.

Es ist eben vieles anders gekommen, als die nordamerikanischen Strategen, sich das gedacht hatten. Sie rechneten mit einem leichten Sieg, nun aber sehen sie sich gegen eine Mauer, die Feuer speit, anrennen.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (December 29, 1944)

Pyle satisfied with G.I. film

Hollywood, California (UP) –
Columnist Ernie Pyle, en route to the Western Pacific after a three-month respite from war coverage, seemed well-satisfied with the movie version of his bestseller, Here Is Your War.

“I really couldn’t tell much about it,” he said, after looking over preliminary “takes” of the film, The Story of G.I. Joe. “It was all in pieces, but it looked like they were trying to do it right.”

Pyle, who came home from the fighting in France for a rest, said he hadn’t had two hours to himself since he got back and actually wasn’t rested at all.

Most of his time, he admitted, was taken by “a thousand and one details,” and a heavy correspondence with G.I. friends overseas.

He read the complete manuscript of his latest book, Brave Men, for the first time a few days ago, he said, and noted in passing that 15 of the men mentioned in it have been killed.

“Fifteen that I’ve heard about, that is,” he added.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 11, 1945)

Pyle gets no rest on front porch

San Francisco, California (UP) –
Ernie Pyle, columnist and war correspondent, said today that he was going to cover the Pacific War “not because I want to, but just because something inside me says I’ve got to.”

The 112-pound correspondent said that although friends think he looks very well, he was unable to rest during the three and a half months he spent at his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home after covering the war in Africa, Italy and France.

“It was no rest – not even a total of a half day sunning myself alone on the front porch,” Mr. Pyle said.

[NormanStewart]

Cadet nurse assumes role in Pyle’s movie

Hollywood, California (UP) –
Beulah Tyler, the girl whose face smiles from Cadet Nurse Corps recruitment posters, arrived from Alexandria, Virginia, today to play the role of an Army nurse in Story of G.I. Joe, the motion picture based on columnist Ernie Pyle’s book.

Miss Tyler, a junior cadet nurse at Alexandria Hospital school of nursing, and the only authentic nurse in the picture, was selected for her role by producer Lester Cowan.

She is using her vacation time to aid nurse recruitment by appearing in the film and plans to become a Navy nurse after graduation.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 11, 1945)

The Roving Reporter –
Ernie off to the wars once more – this time with Navy in the Pacific

By Ernie Pyle

Ernie Pyle is returning to the wars. This time he is with the Navy, and his field will be the Pacific. He has already left San Francisco.

After covering the American campaigns in Africa, Sicily, Italy and France, Ernie took a prolonged rest. Most of his war experiences have been with the infantry; and for a change he has been accredited to the Navy, which is now engaged in some of the war’s biggest operations in the Pacific. Ernie plans to continue with the Navy for several months and then go ashore to rejoin the beloved infantry in one of the big campaigns that lie ahead in the Pacific.

This column was written by Ernie before leaving San Francisco. Three other columns written before his departure will be printed for the next three days, and then by Thursday, February 15, we hope to start receiving some of Ernie’s columns dealing with his new assignment.

SAN FRANCISCO, California – Well, here we go again.

It has been four months since I wrote my last column, from France. In four months of non-production a writer gets out of the habit. He forgets the rhythm of words; falls into the easy habit of not making himself think or feel in self-expression.

This first column is a mankiller. Your mind automatically resents the task of focusing itself again. Your thoughts are scattered and you can’t get them together to put onto paper. Words came hard. You curse the day you ever took up writing to make a living.

So, until I’m once more immersed in the routine of daily writing, and transported once more into the one-track world of war, I’m afraid you’ll have to be tolerant with me.

There’s nothing nice about the prospect of going back to war again. Anybody who has been in war and wants to go back is a plain fool in my book.

I’m certainly not going because I’ve got itchy feet again, or because I can’t stand America, or because there’s any mystic fascination about war that is drawing me back.

I’m going simply because there’s a war on and I’m part of it and I’ve known all the time I was going back. I’m going because I’ve got to.

This time it will be the Pacific. When I left France last fall, we thought the war in Europe was about over. I say “we” because I mean almost everybody over there thought so. I felt it was so near the end I could come home and before the time came to go again, that side of the war would be finished, and only the Pacific would be left.

But it didn’t turn out that way. Now nobody knows how long the European War will last. Naturally all my friends and associations and sentiments are on that side. I suppose down in my heart I would rather go back to that side. For over in Europe, I know the tempo of the battle; I feel at home with it in a way.

Going with Navy

And yet I think it’s best to stick with the original plan and go on to the Pacific. There are a lot of guys in that war, too. They are the same guys who are fighting on the other side, only with different names, that’s all.

I’m going with the Navy this time, since the Navy is so dominant in the Pacific, and since I’ve done very little in the past on that part of the service, I won’t stay with the Navy for the duration – probably two or three months, and then back ashore again with those noble souls, the Doughfoots.

Security forbids telling you just what the plans are. But I can say that I’ll fly across the Pacific, and join ship on the other side. Aboard ship I’ll be out of touch with the world on long cruises. It may be there will be lapses in the daily column, simply because it’s impossible to transmit these pieces. But we’ll do our best to keep them going steadily.

I haven’t figured out yet what I’m going to do about seasickness. I’m one of those unfortunates with a terrific stomach on land, but one that turns to whey and jelly when I get aboard ship. I know of nothing that submerges the muse in a man as much as the constant compulsion to throw up. Perhaps I should take along my own oil to spread on the troubled waters.

Receives warnings

Friends warn me about all kinds of horrible diseases in the Pacific. About dysentery, and malaria, and fungus that gets in your ears and your intestines, and that horrible swelling disease known as elephantiasis.

Well, all I can say is that I’m God’s gift to germs. Those fungi will shout and leap for joy when I show up. Maybe I can play the Pied Piper role – maybe the germs will all follow me when I get there, and leave the rest of the boys free to fight.

So, what with disease, Japs, seasickness, and shot and shell – you see I’m not too overwhelmed with relief at starting out again.

But there’s one thing in my favor where I’m going; one thing that will make life bearable when all else is darkness and gloom. And that one thing is that, out in the Pacific, I’ll be good and stinking hot. Oh boy!

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 12, 1945)

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Ernie Pyle is with the Navy in the Pacific. Pending receipt of his dispatches from that war theater, we are publishing four articles he wrote before his takeoff from San Francisco, of which the following is the second.

SAN FRANCISCO, California – This column is being written in San Francisco before taking off for the Pacific.

If you can bear a little reminiscing, I’d like to go back over these past four months of furlough, and bring you up to date on the Prodigal Son’s recent activities.

Well, since leaving France and returning to America, I have–

Crossed the continent three times. Had eight teeth filled. Spent my first Christmas with “That Girl” since the war started. Mowed the lawn once.

I’ve sat up all night three nights on trains, and three nights on airplanes. I’ve said “no” to many requests to speak, and have managed to keep well supplied with cigarettes.

Kind people have flooded me with gifts. Mayor Clyde Tingley of Albuquerque opened it with a $500 wristwatch, which so overwhelmed me that I left it in a safety deposit box back home. Who would dare wear a $500 wristwatch?

I’ve had luscious apples from Washington State, pecans from Mississippi, half a dozen homemade hunting knives, two college degrees, a Texas cowboy belt, two foxhole shovels, one baby jeep, sunglasses for the Pacific, and one noble friend came through with 10 pounds of bacon.

We’ve had so much company at our house in Albuquerque that one night I slept on a canvas cot in the woodshed, and one night on the living room floor in my new sleeping bag (I didn’t sleep very well either).

Despite all the frenzy, I’ve felt almost pathetic in my happiness at being home. I’ve had a wonderful time. The older I get the better I like being alive. I wish it could go on forever.

What of home front?

People are always asking what I think of the “home front,” expecting me of course to raise hell about it.

Well, I don’t know. In the first place it’s so wonderful to be home that I find myself reluctant to criticize or even admit any flaws in the home front.

It is true that a great many people don’t know there’s a war on, or don’t seem to care. And yet I realize that I could very easily let myself sit down and take it easy and never think of war again, except in an academic way.

It’s almost impossible – sometimes infuriating in a helpless sort of way – to talk to most civilians feelingly about the war.

On trains and in public places I find myself drifting automatically to boys in uniform with overseas ribbons or service stripes, for we can talk the same language.

As an example of what I mean, one man said one day in complete good faith, “Tell me now, just exactly what is it you don’t like about war?”

Service act favored

All I could do was look at him in shock and say “Good God, if you don’t know, then I could never tell you.” It’s little things like that which make returning soldiers feel their misery has all been in vain.

I don’t think America at home is either unwilling or incapable of getting fully into the war. We need only to be told more what to do, and to have scarcities and firmness applied clear across the board.

Personally, I’m glad for the President’s proposal for a national service act. I think it will stiffen up the whole American nation, and through touching almost every family, make people buckle down. That, and the casualties that lie ahead of us.

I believe the worst of our war is still to come, and that before it is over everybody in America will really feel it. I hope so, because then the boys overseas won’t feel so lonesome.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 13, 1945)

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Ernie Pyle has left San Francisco on an assignment with the Navy in the Pacific. He will remain with the Navy for several months and then go ashore to join the infantry – which is so close to Ernie’s heart – in some phase of the great campaigns now developing in the Pacific.

The following column was written before Ernie left San Francisco. His first direct report on his new assignment is expected in a day or two.

SAN FRANCISCO, California – Some of you old-time readers who’ve hung on faithfully to this column for years, might like to know how some of my personal affairs are getting along, since I’ve always worn all the family intimacies on my sleeve.

Take our little dog for instance – “Cheetah.” When I got home, she was in the midst of a romantic spell, and had a lot of strange men-dogs whom I’ve never met hanging around outside the picket fence.

But the romantic business has passed, and now she’s as quiet and lazy as an old woman. She never barks, never makes any trouble, and is always full of that most gracious of all dog gifts – affection for her masters. The little Shepherd is earning her way too Dog Heaven by perpetual good conduct.

Or take “That Girl,” whom you used to read so much about before the war, and who for all those long years of peacetime traveling, rode beside me.

I haven’t written much about her in recent years, because I haven’t seen much of her. The war has done the same thing to us that it has to millions of others. In the last four years, we have been together only on these little excursion trips to America.

She has kept the hearth in Albuquerque – under difficulties. She is back there now, trying to cope with the prospect of another year alone.

Folks in Indiana

And my folks in Indiana – I visited them twice on this furlough in America, both visits all too short, but better than some.

My father and my Aunt Mary are still on the farm, three miles outside the little town of Dana. They have repapered the house and rearranged the furniture, and they are very comfortable.

My father still limps from his hip fracture of a year ago. And his eyes are very bad now, and he can’t see to read. But he gets around all right, and even drives the car to town now and then. We think he shouldn’t be driving, but every time Aunt Mary mentions that, he goes out and get in the car and drives it to town, so she’s stopped mentioning it.

Dad listens a lot to the radio, and helps with the dishes, and Aunt Mary reads to him at night, and last summer he even helped some with the harvesting when the neighbors were hard up for help. he raises a few chickens. Outside of that, life is without duties or energy for him.

Aunt Mary keeps busy

Aunt Mary is almost 79, and her spirit is boundless. She goes all day long, like a 16-year-old. She cooks the meals, cleans the house, works in the garden, does the washing for two or three families, goes to her club meetings and to church, does things for the neighbors, and never finds time to sit down.

I was amused at a letter that came from her the other day. One of our neighbors, Mrs. Howard Goforth, came down with a violent rheumatism. So, Aunt Mary drove over and put hot cloths on her for several hours, got noontime dinner for the farmhands, did the weekly washing, and then got supper ready for them before she came home for her own evening chores.

Next day a blizzard was on. The ice was so slick she didn’t dare take the car out of the garage. The snow on the roads was two feet deep and it was bitter cold.

So, what did Aunt Mary do? She just bundled up and walked three-quarters of a mile over to Goforths, worked all day, and then walked back in the evening through the snow. She sure doesn’t take after her nephew.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 14, 1945)

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Before leaving for the Pacific theater of war with the Navy, Ernie Pyle visited Hollywood to look in on the picture being produced on the basis of his columns from the African and European war theaters. Ernie is reluctant to discuss the picture and has paid little attention to it, but the public’s interest in it has been keen. Therefore, he was asked to write a column dealing with his impressions of the movie version of his reporting, and it follows. This column was written before Ernie left San Francisco. Tomorrow the Press will print Ernie’s first column based on his new assignment.

SAN FRANCISCO, California – And now about the movie which is being partly based on these columns from the war fronts over the last two years.

Well, the movie is finished at last. I mean the shooting is finished. But there are a lot of things we laymen don’t know about the movies, and one of them i9s that a film isn’t ready to show for about three months after they’ve finished shooting. So, I don’t expect you’ll be seeing it till April or May.

They are still calling it The Story of G.I. Joe. I never did like the title, but nobody could think up a better one, and I was too lazy to try. There is a possibility they’ll change it.

It is a movie about the Infantry. There isn’t much of a story to it, and there’s no conventional love interest running through it.

The War Department cooperated, and furnished two companies of soldiers who were moved to Hollywood, plus lots of equipment such as trucks, tanks, guns and whatnot.

The soldiers all grew beards, and although they got awfully itchy, the boys said the girls in Hollywood sure do go for a soft flossy beard. The only tragedy was when one soldier’s beard caught fire one day, and he got pretty badly burned. I don’t know whether he got a Purple Heart for that or not.

No punches pulled

The six main soldier characters in the picture were played by professional actors. But the run-of-the-mill soldiers were played by real soldiers. As was expected, a couple of the real soldiers turned out to be “finds” as actors. By the time you see the picture, practically all the soldiers in it will be filming overseas.

I spent a week in Hollywood nosing into the picture in October, another week in December, and Hollywood people were dropping off every plane, film and stage coach that passed through Albuquerque all the time I was home.

We had Hollywood writers, directors, actors, producers, photographers and research experts by the dozen at our house. The only thing Hollywood didn’t send over to Albuquerque in search of enlightenment and advice was beautiful girls, and I guess they don’t need advice.

I still don’t know whether it will be a good picture or not, but I think it will. Certainly, there are some magnificent scenes in it, and certainly it pulls no punches in showing the mud and misery and fear of an infantryman’s life.

If it isn’t a good picture, it will not be for lack of good intentions. They have worked a year and a half of it, and spent over a million dollars. They’ve slaved to avoid “Hollywooding” it. They’ve sought, and listened to advice from men who know what war is.

They’ve had at least one veteran war correspondent there all the time. The Army has kept never less than three overseas veterans of combat out there constantly. As I left Hollywood, one of these veterans said, “I think it’s going to be a good picture. At least I think it will be the most authentic war picture ever made.”

‘Uglier than Pyle’

My own part in it is very minor, as it should be, for this is a picture about the Infantry, not about me. My part is played by Capt. Burgess Meredith.

The makeup men shaved his head and wrinkled his face and made him up so well that he’s even uglier than I am, poor fellow.

The picture was directed by “Wild Bill” Wellman, one of Hollywood’s top men. Wellman is a picturesque director, wild with enthusiasm, and everything he sees is either the greatest thing he ever saw in his life, or the worst thing. Thank goodness, he thinks this picture comes in the former category.

The picture was produced by Lester Cowan, an independent through United Artists. If it’s a lousy picture, poor Lester will have to face the wrath of about two million irate soldiers. If it isn’t a lousy picture, then he can float on air for years.

An almost anonymous person whose hand bore strongly on the picture is an old Indiana school friend of mine named Paige Cavanaugh. Being one of my closest friends, he quit whatever he was doing last spring and went to work for Lester Cowan, largely to insure, as Lester puts it, that “Cowan didn’t louse Pyle up.”

But as time went on Cavanaugh’s innate good sense began to make an impression around Hollywood, and in the end, they have leaned heavily on his judgment. Cavanaugh, being a farmer at heart, still sneers at Hollywood, but he’s got a gleam in his eye that looks permanent to me.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 15, 1945)

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

HONOLULU, Hawaii – The hour of leaving came at last.

Usually when starting overseas, you don’t get away on the day the transportation people originally set for you. I remember when I first started going to war, how impatient at delay I would be, and how I would fret myself into a frenzy over every day of waiting. But time changes things like that.

This time also there was a delay of a few days. Every one of them I welcomed with a big embrace. I felt like saying to it, “Ah, my love, you are the day of my dreams. You are my one more day of security – how I cherish you.”

But the final day came, and at last the hour, I put on my uniform again for a long, long time, and sent my civilian clothes to a friend in Los Angeles to keep for me.

It was night when we left San Francisco. We flew in a huge four-motored land plane, operated by the Naval Air Transport Service. In the Navy, they call it “NATS,” as though it spelled a word.

The Army’s equivalent is the ATC. I’ve flown on both of them so much I feel like a stockholder. They fly all over the world on clock-like schedule, over all the oceans and all the continents, carrying wartime mail and cargo and passengers.

Nonstop to Hawaii

I’ve flown the Atlantic four times, but this was my first flight across the Pacific. You go nonstop from California to Hawaii. It’s about the same distance as crossing the continent, yet it was as easy as flying from Albuquerque to Los Angeles.

We left shortly after suppertime, and were over Honolulu a little after daylight next morning. There was simply nothing unusual at all to report about it.

Shortly after we took off, I got some blankets and lay down on the floor in the rear of the plane. When I woke up it was just getting daylight, and we had only an hour to go. That’s the way I like to fly an ocean.

All of us had left California in our woolen winter uniforms. But when we stepped out of the plane in Honolulu, those heavy clothes almost made us sick. By the time we go through the formalities and left the field, we were all dripping and swabbing ourselves.

In Honolulu, I stayed in the home of a naval friend. The first thing we did was take a shower bath, change to light khaki clothes, and eat a plateful of beautiful yellow papaya. A wonderful tropical feeling of well-being came over you.

A naval houseboy named Flores, a native of Guam, took care of us. He washed our clothes and made our beds and fixed us fruit juice and papaya all day long.

A squat Hawaiian woman, in blue slacks and with a red bandana around her head, watered the lawn over and over and over again, very slowly.

The sun shown brightly and white clouds ran an embroidery over the ridges of the far green hills. Palm trees rustled like rain, and the deep whistles of departing ships came from the harbor below us. This, truly, was the Pacific.

No rationing

The trip over had not exhausted me, but the change of climate did, and for a day I did nothing but loaf – and recover from America – and bask in being warm.

Then I started making the rounds of completing my Navy credentials, and of seeing friends. Lt. Cdr. Max Miller and I stocked up with cigarettes, against the possibility of shortages farther west. Actually you can buy cigarettes (your favorite brand, too) right downtown in Honolulu.

There is no rationing of anything in Honolulu, and no blackout any longer either. Rationing doesn’t exist because practically everything here is considered military, and also because shipping space from the mainland is an automatic rationer.

The great number of uniforms on the streets and the 10 o’clock curfew are the most vivid reminders of the war in Honolulu. That and the vast growth and construction that has occurred since Pearl Harbor.

Otherwise, the war seems far away. The grimness of Pearl Harbor has gone. In many respects the newcomer, beguiled by the climate and the loveliness of everything, and the softness, feels more remote from the war than he did back home.

And so I treated my little Honolulu interlude as another reprieve. I sat with old friends; I made a sentimental visit to the little tropical apartment on Waikiki where “That Girl” and I lived for a winter seven years ago; I went to parties and listened almost tearfully to the sweet singing of Hawaiians.

I relished the short time here in complacency, and didn’t even pretend that I was starting out to report the Pacific war. All that would come soon enough.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 16, 1945)

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

HONOLULU, Hawaii (delayed) – Covering this Pacific war is, for me, going to be like learning to live in a new city.

The methods of war, the attitude toward it, the homesickness, the distances, the climate – everything is different from what we have known in the European war.

Here in the beginning. I can’t seem to get my mind around it, or get my fingers on it. I suspect it will take months to get adjusted and get the “feel” of this war.

Distance is the main thing. I don’t mean distance from America so much, for our war in Europe is a long way from home too. I mean distances after you get right on the battlefield.

For the whole western Pacific is our battlefield now, and whereas distances in Europe are hundreds of miles at most, out here they are thousands. And there’s nothing in between but water.

You can be on an island battlefield, and the next thing behind you is a thousand miles away. One soldier told me the worst sinking feeling he ever had was when they had landed on an island and were fighting, and on the morning of D-3 he looked out to sea and it was completely empty. Our entire convoy had unloaded and left for more, and boy, did it leave you with a lonesome and deserted feeling.

Like slow-motion movies

As one admiral said, directing this war is like watching a slow-motion picture. You plan something for months, and then finally the great day comes when you launch your plans, and then it is days or weeks before the attack happens, because it takes that long to get there.

As an example of how they feel, the Navy gives you a slick sheet of paper as you go through here, entitled “Airline Distances in Pacific.” And at the bottom of it is printed “Our Enemy, Geography.” Logistics out there is more than a word; it’s a nightmare.

Here’s another example of their attitude toward distances in the Pacific–

At Anzio in Italy just a year ago, the Third Division set up a rest camp for its exhausted infantrymen. The rest camp was less than five miles from the front line, within constant enemy artillery range.

But in the Pacific, they bring men clear back from the western islands to Pearl Harbor to rest camps – the equivalent of bringing an Anzio Beachhead fighter all the way back to Kansas City for his two-weeks rest.

It’s 3,500 miles from Pearl Harbor to the Marianas, all over water, yet hundreds of people travel it daily by air as casually as you’d go to work in the morning.

Another enemy

And there is another enemy out here that we did not know so well in Europe – and that is monotony. Oh sure, war everywhere is monotonous in its dreadfulness. But out here even the niceness of life gets monotonous.

The days are warm and on our established island bases the food is good and the mail service is fast and there’s little danger from the enemy and the days go by in their endless sameness and they drive you nuts. They sometimes call it going “pineapple crazy.”

Our high rate of returning mental cases is discussed frankly in the island and service newspapers. A man doesn’t have to be under fire in the front lines finally to have more than he can take without breaking.

He can, when isolated and homesick, have more than he can take of nothing but warmth and sunshine and good food and safety – when there’s nothing else to go with it, and no prospect of anything else.

Japs are different

And another adjustment I’ll have to make is the attitude toward the enemy. In Europe, we felt our enemies, horrible and deadly as they were, were still people.

But out here I’ve already gathered the feeling that the Japanese are looked upon as something unhuman and squirmy – like some people feel about cockroaches or mice.

I’ve seen one group of Japanese prisoners in a wire-fenced courtyard, and they were wrestling and laughing and talking just as humanly as anybody. And yet they gave me a creepy feeling, and I felt in need of a mental bath after looking at them.

I’ve not yet got to the front, or anywhere near it, to find out how the average soldier or sailor or Marine feels about the thing he’s fighting. But I’ll bet he doesn’t feel the same way our men in Europe feel.