”Nobody has ever refused to talk with me. Only one man has ever refused to let me write about him, and even he was friendly and we talked for an hour." — Ernie Pyle
Ernie Pyle was one of the most famous
war correspondents of World War II. Pyle studied journalism at Indiana University and left school to become a reporter for a small-town
newspaper. Later, after various editorial jobs, he acquired a roving assignment for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain; his daily experiences furnished him
material for a column that eventually appeared in as many as 200 newspapers before World War II.
His coverage of the campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France brought him a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in
1944, as well as several other awards. The motion picture G.I. Joe (1945) was about Pyle's coverage of the Italian campaign. He was with the
U.S. forces in the Pacific on Iwo Jima, and during the Okinawa campaign he visited the nearby island of Ie Shima, where he was killed by
Japanese machine-gun fire.
— Source: Encyclopædia Britannica
"It is
exquisite irony that this journalist became celebrated for celebrating the non-celebrated." — Studs Terkel
Books by Ernie Pyle
Ernie Pyle in England (1941)
Home Country (1935)
Here Is Your War: Story of G.I. Joe (1945)
Brave Men (1943)
Ernie's War: The Best of Ernie Pyle's World War II Dispatches (1986)
Ernie's America: The Best of Ernie Pyle's 1930s Travel Dispatches (1989)
On a Wing and a Prayer: The Aviation Columns of Ernie Pyle (1995)
with me. Only one man has ever refused to let me write about him, and even he was friendly and we talked for an hour."
editorial jobs, he acquired a roving assignment for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain; his daily experiences furnished him
material for a column that eventually appeared in as many as 200 newspapers before World War II.
Ernie Pyle in England (1941)