Roving Reporter, Ernie Pyle

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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.

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550

The Pittsburgh Press (November 15, 1944)

erniepacific

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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:

6warloan.jpg

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?

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552

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.