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Ernie Pyle

Page history last edited by Howie Good 14 years, 4 months ago

 

 

Ernie Pyle

 August 3, 1900 - April 18, 1945

 

 

Ernie Pyle first became famous for his daily column on aviation, but it was during World War II, as a war correspondent, that he became a household name. Chris Sinacola notes; "Pyle's work is memorable less for his descriptions of actual battle than for the descriptions of life among the soldiers. He writes of their courage, hopes and fears, their homesickness, and the difficulties of getting mail to and from loved ones."  

 

On August 3, 1900, Will and Maria Pyle welcomed their only child into the world. They named him Ernest Taylor Pyle and never called him anything else, even after he became famous as Ernie Pyle. He grew up on a farm and lived in a home with no plumping or electricity. He started school in 1906, driven by his teacher in a horse-drawn buggy each day (Miller, 3-7).

  

By the time he reached high school , he would have gladly joined the military, but "his parents had insisted that he graduate" (Miller, 11). Immediately after graduating, however, Pyle enrolled in the Naval Reserve. Just before he was scheduled to go to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, World War I ended. Pyle never saw any combat. 

   

On July 31, 1919, Pyle wrote a letter inquiring about enrolling at Indiana University in the upcoming fall semester. He had no idea about what he wanted to study, but knew he didn't want to have anything to do with farming. According to Lee Miller's biography, a soon-to-be friend of Pyle's, Paige Cavanaugh, suggested studying journalism because it "sounds like a pipe" (14). Unfortunately,  there was no journalism major until 1932, so Pyle chose to major in economics. 

   

During his second semester Pyle took his first journalism class and began writing for the school paper, the Indiana Daily Student, a member of the Associated Press.  In 1921, during Pyle's junior year and while he was city editor, the paper ran Kirke Simpson's articles describing the burial of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Simpson was a reporter for the Associated Press and his articles about the Unknown Soldier earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1922. According to Miller, "They brought tears to Ernie's eyes. It was probably Kirke Simpson, as much as anyone else, who influenced Ernie's decision to become a newspaperman" (Miller, 16).     

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        A short video discussing Pyle's significance as a war correspondent. 

 

 In 1922 Pyle accompanied the Indiana University baseball team to Japan aboard the Keystone State.  On the trip he wrote an article that would become his first byline. It was in this article that he began to develop the voice he would become known for, a common man's voice. Shortly before graduating from Indiana University, Pyle left school to work for the LaPorte Herald in January 1923. Although his parents may not have approved of his decision, Pyle spoke with his close friend, the Dean of Men, Clarence  Edmundson, who suggested he take the job (Tobin, 12-13). 

  

After only four months in LaPorte, Pyle took a job with the Washington Daily News, a new Scripps-Howard paper. Although he started as a reporter he was quickly moved to the copy desk, "where he transformed other reporters' writing into the spare, readable style Martin (the editor of Washington Daily News) wanted" (Tobin, 15).  

   

In 1925, Pyle married ,and a year later,  left his job at the Washington Daily News to travel the country with his wife, Jerry. The end of the summer brought them to New York, where they lived for sixteen months with Pyle  copyediting at the New York Evening World and then at the New York Post (Tobin, 17). In  1927 he  took a job at the Washington Daily News as telegraph-editor (Tobin, 18). 

  

Upon returning to the Daily News Pyle asked managing editor Lee Graham Miller if he could write an Aviation column for the paper in his off time. Miller agreed and Pyle's column, possibly the first of its kind, was published on March 26, 1928 (Miller, 41). The column became so popular that Amelia Earhart once said; "Not to know Ernie Pyle is to admit that you yourself are unknown in aviation" (Miller, 42).

    

Pyle continued writing the daily aviation column, which was "marked by a preoccupation with people and with 'little things,'" until 1932 when he became managing editor of the paper, a position he held for the next three years (Miller, 42, 47). Eventually, after much persuasion, Pyle convinced editor-in-chief Lowell Mellett to allow him to travel and write a daily column about his travels (Tobin, 25-6). It was during the writing of these depression-era columns that he solidified his talent with Americans and truly became known as Ernie Pyle. James Tobin writes; "he wrote two and half million words that comprise a forgotten but magnificent mosaic of the American scene in the Great Depression" (27). 

  

In December 1940, Pyle arrived in London and began covering  World War II.  In September 1941 he took a three-month leave to care for Jerry, who was struggling with alcoholism and "suffering one relapse after another" (Tobin, 61). Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Ernie and Jerry divorced, though they eventually remarried. Pyle soon set out on a "six-month tour of war-zones [in Europe]" (Tobin, 66). Those six months turned into a year, and from London, Pyle boarded a ship with a convoy to Africa in November 1942.

   

Pyle's experiences in Africa are chronicled in his book, Here Is Your War. The book, which eventually gained the subtitle Story of G.I. Joe, showcases Pyle's ability to write about the common soldier. While other correspondents focused on the war as a whole, Pyle focused on the individuals fighting it. Depauw University's journalism hall of fame entry on Pyle describes his writing by saying, "His talent lay in telling the story of 'G.I. Joe'--someone's son, brother, or husband. He became the friend of the fighting man, from the lowliest private to the highest-ranking general."     

 

Readers loved it. He became, as James Tobin puts it, "America's eyewitness to World War II." By August 1944, Pyle was ready to go home. He told his readers in a column, "I've been immersed in it too long....The hurt has finally become too great." (Tobin, 201). His stay was short, and in January 1945 he went to cover the war in the Pacific.

   

Ernie Pyle was known for predicting his own death. Unfortunately, this time he was correct. On April 18, 1945, on the island of Ie Shima, off the coast of Okinawa, Pyle was struck with a machine gun bullet "in the left temple just below the line of his helmet" (Tobin, 240).

  

 

 

 

 

 

Above: The last photo of Pyle, taken shortly after his death. 

 


 

Annotated Bibliography

  

 

"Ernie Pyle." Indiana University School of Journalism. Web. 28 Oct. 2009. <http://www.journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/>.

  

This section of the Indiana University website goes into depth about Pyle's education there as well as his career afterwards. The site also includes links to several of his columns.

 

  

Graham, Miller, Lee. The Story of Ernie Pyle. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1970. Print.

  

This biography of Pyle discusses, in depth, his early years and education. It also provides information on his time as a war correspondent and his death.

 

  

"Profile." DePauw University. Web. 28 Oct. 2009. <http://www.depauw.edu/library/archives/ijhof/inductees/pyle.htm>

  

This website briefly discusses Pyle's education and gives details about his achievements in journalism. It also provides a link to a website where you can read columns he wrote as well as his obituary.

 

 

Pyle, Ernie. Brave Men. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1945. Print.

  

This is a collection of Pyle's articles, organized into categories by where the articles take place. It showcases his talent for writing about the common soldier in a way others during his time did not.

 

  

Pyle, Ernie. Here is Your War: Story of G.I. Joe. Cleveland: The World Company, 1945. Print.

  

Also a collection of Pyle's articles chronicling his time in Africa. It is another example of Pyle's ability to create moving stories about common people in battle as opposed to writing about the army in general or the more distinguished officers. 

 

  

Sinacola, Chris. "Soldiers As Ernie Pyle Depicted Them; He Gave America Real People Profiles." Telegram & Gazette [Worcestor, MA] 23 May 2008: B5. InfoTrac      Custom Newspapers. Web. 28 Oct. 2009. <http://find.galegroup.com.libdatabase.newpaltz.edu/gtx/start.do?prodId=SPN.SP00&userGroupName=nysl_se_sojotru>.

  

This article discusses Pyle's writing style and why it was so strong. It also briefly compares Pyle's coverage of World War II with the current coverage of Iraq and recent wars in general.

  

 

Tobin, James. Ernie Pyle's War America's Eyewitness to World War II. New York: Free, 2006. Print.

  

This book  focuses on Pyle's time as a war correspondent. The book primarily contains Pyle's own articles and letters to various friends and family. It also includes information from the Ernie Pyle Historical Site.  

Comments (6)

Howie Good said

at 7:17 pm on Oct 28, 2009

Well done, Mark!

You should probably get STORY OF GI JOE in here as well

Melissa Vitale said

at 10:54 am on Nov 16, 2009

I don't think you need your first paragraph, just try and focus on Pyles's contribution to American Journalism.

Howie Good said

at 2:16 pm on Nov 28, 2009

This is developing well: see my interpolated note.

you might mention his wife's alcoholism before you say she had a relapse. . . he had some trouble with booze, too, as i recall

mschaefer59@newpaltz.edu said

at 2:25 pm on Nov 28, 2009

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll add that information.

Anyone have any idea why it looks like there are 4 different font sizes on my page?

Howie Good said

at 3:24 pm on Nov 28, 2009

i played with the fonts, but couldn't get it to change. you might try "help"

mschaefer59@newpaltz.edu said

at 11:13 pm on Nov 29, 2009

Still not sure what's going on with the font, all the formatting claims it is consistent and I can't find anything under "help." Not sure how else to fix it.

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