Ernie's War: The Best of Ernie Pyle's World War II Dispatches

Ernie Pyle is the doyen of war correspondents, the poet of the infantry, a delightful and engaging friend. Everybody read Ernie's columns during the war, as he provided an honest on-the-ground look at the men who made up America's army. Ernie shared their dangers and hardships, sleeping rough, dodging bullets and shells while being drawn inexorably towards the front. This quest for the truest, closest picture of the war is what makes Pyle great, and also what got him killed in the invasion of Okinawa. This book is like having a incredibly observant and empathetic friend writing letters home, and should be required reading for student of WW2.

Let me close with a few quotes that sum up Pyle's work.

"Tunisia - April 22, 1943.
When I got ready show more to return to my old friends at the front, I wondered if I would sense any change in them.
The most vivid change is the casual and workshop manner in which they talk about killing. They have made the psychological transition from the normal belief that taking a human life is sinful, over to a new professional outlook where killing is a craft. In fact it is an admirable thing.
As a noncombatant, my own life is in danger only by occasional chance or circumstance. Consequently I need not think of killing in personal terms, and killing to me is still murder."

[a draft of his last column, found on his body]
"On Victory in Europe - 1945
Those who are gone would not wish themselves to be a millstone of gloom around our necks.
But there are many of the living who have had burned into their brains forever the unnatural sight of cold dead men scattered over the hillsides and in the ditches along the high rows of hedge throughout the world...
Dead men by mass production.
Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous.
Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come to hate them.
These are the things that you at home need not even try to understand. To you at home they are columns of figures, or he is a near one who went away and just didn't come back. You didn't see him lying so grotesque and pasty beside the gravel road in France.
We saw him, saw him by the multiple thousands. That's the difference..."

What a writer. What a human being. show less

David Nichols has done an excellent job of compiling some of the columns that Ernie Pyle wrote for American newspapers during World War II. Through his columns, Pyle was trying to relate to people back in America what life was like for those involved very directly in the war, and I think Nichols has honored that goal through the pieces that he assembled. Pyle was especially fond of being with front-line troops, so we learn of life lived by soldiers and marines -- the times of intense danger, the fights with weather, the sometimes weeks-long periods of inadequate food and hygiene, and the loss of comrades. Without delving into the morbid or grotesque, Pyle, provided, too, some sense of the horrors of war.

Additionally Nichols has provided show more commentary about the personal challenges that Pyle faced. For example, Pyle and his wife both dealt with depression. The reader can draw one's own conclusions as to how that might have affected some of Pyle's choices. But Nichols has left his comments to a very minimum; the vast majority of the book comes directly from Pyle's articles.

Pyle, and through Nichols' choice of material to include, also provided us with insights into some of the experiences that portrayed the side of a war that doesn't have to do with dodging bullets and bombs. For example, there is the broad swath of humankind that can be drawn together in war; we learn of Lieutenant Rudolph von Ripper, a man of royal lineage whom Pyle met, and who had exploits from a traveling circus to the French Foreign Legion to being an officer in the US Army. And there are the lighter moments that one can experience, such as the time Pyle and some colleagues experienced the toe-curling eau de vie proffered by a Paris cafe owner, or the time a Japanese soldier thought the best time to surrender to an American was while the American officer was tending to business seated at a field latrine.

Overall, I found the book to be a really enjoyable read. While I think anyone would like reading the book, Ernie's War would be especially valuable to anyone interested in World War II or that time period. show less

After watching Ken Burns' The War I was struck by the commentary on the war from Ernie Pyle, so I checked out Ernie's war : the best of Ernie Pyle's World War II dispatches (1986) edited with a biographical essay by David Nichols. The reprinted columns show Ernie telling about the second World War from London during the blitz to the North Africa campaign, Sicily, Italy, the D-Day invasion and advancement across France, the liberation of Paris, and finally the Pacific campaign with the invasion of Okinawa. Pyle was killed by a sniper during the Pacific war shortly before the European war came to an end in April 1945.

Pyle offers an interesting, honest appraisal usually from the ground's eye view of the war and the military fighting it. show more Pyle is particularly fond of the infantry but he moves around the different branches and units of the services to offer varied perspectives on the war. I can't summarize the dispatches here but if you're interested in a touching, honest, sometimes harrowing first-person account of WWII, I highly recommend reading this book, show less

Interesting human interest war stories, mostly in Europe. Sad about his death no Okinawa. He had the human touch for sure.