Ernie’s friend wants Ernie, not bequest
LOS ANGELES, California (UP) – Eugene Uebelhardt, 45-year-old Filipino welder, said today that he would give up “every penny” of the $2,500 Ernie Pyle willed him if that would bring back the late war correspondent.
“What is money when it comes through the death of a man like that?” Mr. Uebelhardt asked when informed of the bequest from Ernie, killed last week by a Jap machine-gunner on Ie Shima.
“I’d gladly give up every penny of the money to have my friend back,” he said.
Uebelhardt, whose friendship with Pyle started on a boat just out of Manila in 1922, is working at Consolidated Steel shipyards under the name of Webelhardt.
Pyle, on a tour with the University of Indiana baseball team when he met Uebelhardt, took a special interest in the youth, helped him to enter the United States, took him to his Indiana home, and helped him through school.