Ernie Pyle | |
|---|---|
 Ernie Pyle in 1945 | |
| Born | Ernest Taylor Pyle August 3, 1900 Dana, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | April 18, 1945 (aged 44) |
| Cause of death | Killed in action |
| Resting place | National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Spouse |
Geraldine Siebolds (m. 1925) |
Ernest Taylor Pyle (August 3, 1900 – April 18, 1945) was an American journalist and war correspondent who is best known for his stories about ordinary American soldiers during World War II. Pyle is also notable for the columns he wrote as a roving human-interest reporter from 1935 through 1941 for the Scripps-Howard newspaper syndicate that earned him wide acclaim for his simple accounts of ordinary people across North America. When the United States entered World War II, he lent the same distinctive, folksy style of his human-interest stories to his wartime reports from the European theater (1942–44) and Pacific theater (1945). Pyle won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his newspaper accounts of "dogface" infantry soldiers from a first-person perspective. He was killed by enemy fire on Iejima (then known as Ie Shima) during the Battle of Okinawa.
At the time of his death in 1945, Pyle was among the best-known American war correspondents. His syndicated column was published in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers nationwide. President Harry Truman said of Pyle, "No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen."[1]
- ^ "Statement by the President on the Death of Ernie Pyle". Public Papers, Harry S. Truman, 1945–1953. Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. April 18, 1945. Archived from the original on September 10, 2015. Retrieved February 9, 2015.