Saturday, May 27, 2023

Reading Ernie Pyle on Memorial Day

 

This Memorial Day weekend, read some of the dispatches of Ernie Pyle.

Born in Indiana in 1900, Pyle was known during World War II as the reporter who wrote about the average G.I. Their stories in his syndicated column gave the people back home a glimpse of the war at ground level.

Pyle was with the U.S. infantry as they fought in the mountains of Italy and, after D-Day, he was with the soldiers fighting in France.

His most well-known dispatch may be “The Death of Captain Waskow,” (which you can read here). Another is, “A Slow Cautious Business” (here).

Pyle later went to cover the war in the Pacific and was killed there in April, 1945.