“Ernie Pyle in England” was published in 1941, before the United States was in the war. So, what did a ‘war correspondent’ write about then? Actually, he wasn’t yet the war correspondent who became the G.I.’s pal, and the U.S. was still inventing GIs in its Army training camps, barracks, and the many field maneuvers. However, by 1940 when he left for England Ernie Pyle had twenty years of experience as a journalist and had perfected his journalistic style as a roving reporter for Scripps-Howard since 1934. His wartime reporting would in many ways be more of the same and it begins here.
This would be the first of the books drawing on his regular columns covering the war, and it would be reprinted multiple times up through 1945. My copy is from the Seventh Printing in April 1945. Ernie Pyle died that same month from a Japanese machine gun bullet on the island then known to Americans as Ie Shima, just northwest of the island of Okinawa. A monument erected at the spot reportedly still stands, reading “At this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle, 18 April 1945." His wife Jerry would die the following November as her health issues and possibly the impact of Ernie’s death affected her. Pyle’s remains were transferred in 1949 to the newly created National Memorial Center of the Pacific, in Honolulu.
The two other books of Ernie’s wartime reporting published during the war are “Here Is Your War” (1943) and “Brave Men” (1944). In 1944, he would be recognized with a Pulitzer Prize for “distinguished war correspondence” for his work during 1943. Another volume appeared in 1949 entitled “Last Chapter”, drawing on his reports from the Pacific theatre up to his death. Since then, other new books from other editors and authors have drawn on his wartime writings and his own story to talk about the war, about the war correspondents, and about Ernie Pyle.
In this book, Ernie recounts his arrival in England and his apprehensions about the German bombing raids, food rationing, and the welcome he might find from the British population as a ‘neutral’ American journalist. Perhaps it’s not surprising given reports of American attitudes before the US entered the war, but the author notes that he has nothing against the Germans but that as a ‘neutral’ he’s neutral in favor of Britain. His experiences over the following months clearly cement that leaning while not yet hardening his attitudes towards Germany. During his months in Britain he met Anti-Aircraft gunners, fire watchers, air raid shelter managers and staff, the Home Guard, and even Lord Beaverbrook, in his wandering investigations into wartime life in Britain. He several times notes the state of the food rations and what’s available or not in the markets and restaurants. He leaves Britain in March 1941 not knowing that before the year is out the United States will no longer be neutral and will be definitely more than “leaning” towards the British.
War Correspondent Ernie Pyle made such an impact on the GIs and the public at large in his later reporting that he was the subject of a feature film made even before the war had ended, and before Pyle actually left for the Pacific. “The Story of GI Joe,” released July 1945, is based on Pyle’s published reporting, and was directed by William Wellman, who had flown in France with the Lafayette Escadrille during the First World War. The cast included veterans of the war in Europe who paused on their way to the Pacific Theatre to appear in the movie. Ernie Pyle was also headed for the Pacific but had time to visit the shooting location and meet with actor Burgess Meredith who was to play Pyle in the film. Reports indicate that Ernie approved of his cinematic doppelgänger.
(Actor Burgess Meredith as ‘Ernie Pyle’ with Ernie Pyle on the film set for “The Story of GI Joe”, from imdb.com)
Starring alongside Meredith was Robert Mitchum, who had only started acting in films in 1943. His supporting role as Lieutenant/Captain Walker would win Mitchum an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and launch his career. (The Oscar went to James Dunn for “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”) Almost ironically, after the movie, young Mitchum entered military service in April 1945 and was discharged in October 1945 after the end of the war.
(Screenshot from “The Story of GI Joe”, Robert Mitchum and Burgess Meredith, from imdb.com)
The movie’s story line draws heavily on Ernie Pyle’s columns about the 36th “Texas” Division in North Africa and Italy, and particularly the company commanded by Captain Henry T. Waskow, of Belton, Texas (portrayed by Mitchum as Captain Walker rather than Waskow at the insistence of the US Army) and particularly at the end as Waskow’s men – and Ernie – react to Captain Waskow’s death. “He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.” A few years ago, l would recount this story for my daughter when I recognized that the local community museum in Texas where she worked had Captain Waskow’s dress uniform among its exhibits.
(Captain Henry T. Waskow, 1943, from wikimedia.com)
I’ve written before about how the 36th Texas Division, a National Guard unit, finds its way into this movie and at least two others. The 1951 film “Go for Broke” about the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, organized in 1943 to draw on volunteers from that community, many of them recruited from the internment camps. An important incident in the film is based upon the actual attack made by the 442nd in Italy to break through German lines and relieve a surrounded battalion from the 36th Division. The 1955 movie, “To Hell and Back”, based upon the wartime service of Audie Murphy (playing himself in the film) also has an appearance by the 36th. After being turned down by the Army, Navy, and the Marines, Murphy was finally able to enlist in the Army and was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division – “The Rock of the Marne”. Both the 3rd and 36th Divisions participated in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of the South of France from the Mediterranean in 1944 – after the D-Day invasion at Normandy. This sets up the encounter in the film in which Murphy reunites with his fellow Texans on the battlefield.
The battle in which Captain Waskow as killed, the battle of San Pietro, would itself inspire another film, a documentary directed by John Huston called “The Battle of San Pietro.” Released in May 1945, the documentary came out of the attachment of Huston’s film unit to the 143rd Regiment of the 36th “Texas” Division during the fighting for San Pietro in December 1943 just south of Monte Cassino. The documentary’s sometimes hard realism, including the showing of dead GIs wrapped in mattress bags, was considered over the top by some in the Army who called it an ‘anti-war movie.’ Huston reportedly responded that “if he ever made a pro-war movie, he hoped he would be shot.’ General George Marshall appears to have resolved the controversy when he said its gritty realism would help new recruits to the Army take their training seriously.
I have read suggestions that some of the dialogue in “The Story of GI Joe” was lifted from Bill Mauldin’s cartoons about the two GIs Willie and Joe that appeared in the wartime newspaper Stars and Stripes. I have no idea whether or not this is true, but like Ernie, Mauldin delighted in capturing the reality of the GI’s life even as it frustrated those like General George Patton who objected to that portrayal. The GIs portrayed in this film alongside Ernie Pyle have a lot more in common with Willie and Joe than the soldiers of Patton’s Third Army who dressed according to his more stringent standards. I do know that when War Correspondent Ernie Pyle returned to the UK after the entry of the US into the war, he visited the first American troops to reach Europe after that entry at their camps and training sites in Northern Ireland. Ernie’s reports on how the GIs were doing there were accompanied by new cartoons drawn by another veteran of the craft, Bruce Bairnsfather,
whose cartoons featuring Ole Bill, Bert, and Alf, were the Willie and Joe of the British Expeditionary Force of the First World War.
https://open.substack.com/pub/look/p/photo-of-the-day-90f?r=24m4r5&utm_medium=ios
If you ever get the chance, the Ernie Pyle WW2 museum in Dana, Indiana is a must visit.