 Ernie
Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II (Modern War Studies)
by James Tobin
Amazon.com
When World War 2 correspondent Ernie
Pyle left for the Pacific Theater in 1945, he told friends and colleagues
that he felt sure he would die there. Pyle was right; on April 18th,
a Japanese machine gunner killed one of America's most beloved personalities,
sending the entire nation into shock and mourning. In the years
since Pyle's death, his particular brand of journalism has been criticized:
he's been accused of ignoring the stupidity of generals, of downplaying
the horror of battle, and of presenting the war in a better light than
it actually deserved to be portrayed. James Tobin, author of the impressive
biography Ernie Pyle's War, does not deny that his subject often
smoothed the jagged facts of war, but he provides both the context--an
era and a war in which correspondents were expected to be "team players"
who helped their side to win hearts and minds at home--and the personal
conflict raised for Pyle by the often irreconcilable demands of telling
the truth and building morale.
In addition to detailing Pyle's mostly
unhappy personal life, Tobin also includes samples of his columns, proving
once and for all that Pyle was more than just a hick who fell into
reporting; the man had real, substantial talent, evidenced by his ability
to put words together and his sensitivity to the subjects he wrote about.
More than just a biography, Ernie Pyle's War is also a study of war, and
the peculiar, twilight world of suffering and half-told truths to
which men like Ernie Pyle were drawn. --This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.
When a machine-gun bullet ended the
life of war correspondent Ernie Pyle in the final days of World War II,
Americans mourned him in the same breath as they mourned Franklin
Roosevelt. To millions, the loss of this American folk hero seemed nearly
as great as the loss of the wartime president.
If the hidden horrors and valor of combat
persist at all in the public mind, it is because of those writers who watched
it and recorded it in the faith that war is too important to be confined
to the private memories of the warriors. Above all these writers, Ernie
Pyle towered as a giant. Through his words and his compassion, Americans
everywhere gleaned their understanding of what they came to call "The Good
War."
Pyle walked a troubled path to fame.
Though insecure and anxious, he created a carefree and kindly public image
in his popular prewar column -- all the while struggling with inner
demons and a tortured marriage. War, in fact, offered Pyle an escape hatch
from his own personal hell.
It also offered him a subject precisely
suited to his talent -- a shrewd understanding of human nature, an unmatched
eye for detail, a profound capacity to identify with the suffering
soldiers whom he adopted as his own, and a plain yet poetic style reminiscent
of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. These he brought to bear on the Battle
of Britain and all the great American campaigns of the war -- North Africa,
Sicily, Italy, D-Day and Normandy, the liberation of Paris, and finally
Okinawa, where he felt compelled to go because of his enormous public stature
despite premonitions of death.
In this immensely engrossing biography,
affectionate yet critical, journalist and historian James Tobin does an
Ernie Pyle job on Ernie Pyle, evoking perfectly the life and labors
of this strange, frail, bald little man whose love/hate relationship to
war mirrors our own. Based on dozens of interviews and copious research
in little-known archives, Ernie Pyle's War is a self-effacing tour de force.
To read it is to know Ernie Pyle, and most of all, to know his war.
"If you think Ernie Pyle is ancient
history, think again. Barely half a century ago he was one of the most
famous people in America. The columns he wrote were read by millions, anticipated
and revered as though they were regular bulletins from a sacred source.
. . . What he called his 'worm's-eye' view of combat set a standard
for war reporting that remains influential unto this day. . . . A thorough,
sympathetic, and revealing book."--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book
World "A portrait of a complex, enormously gifted but tortured
writer, entrapped and ultimately driven to death by a sense of obligation
to the image he inadvertently created of himself. It is undoubtedly
the best biography of Ernie Pyle ever written, but it is much more; few
books about combat journalism have so vividly depicted the fascinating
interactions between war correspondents and the folks back home. . . .
World War II was quintessentially Ernie
Pyle's war, and Tobin brilliantly explains why."--Malcolm W. Browne, New
York Times Book Review "A fine and fascinating new biography. Pyle
didn't write about warriors and generals and lofty subjects like global
affairs. He produced wonderful stories about plumbers and teachers
and mechanics and all sorts of regular guys who, due to circumstances they
had no control over, went to war and then did their best to win and
come home alive."--Daniel LeDuc, Philadelphia Inquirer
"A wonderfully crafted biography."--William
Prochnau, author of Once Upon a Distant War
"Ernie Pyle showed everybody else the
way. He was a hell of a reporter."--Charles Kuralt
About the Author
James Tobin, a Pulitzer Prize nominee
and prizewinning reporter for the Detroit News, lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This is the portrait of a complex, enormously gifted but
tortured writer ... It is undoubtedly the best biography of Ernie Pyle ever
written, but it is much more; few books about combat journalism have so vividly
depicted the fascinating interactions between war correspondents, soldiers, and
the folks back home. |
| A few other War Correspondents, Here's a growing list of War
Correspondents. Winston Churchill, escaped a Boer Prison Camp in South
Africa
Ernie Pyle, WWII
David Halberstam, Michael Herr, Peter Arnett, Vietnam
Christiane Amanpour, Bosnia, Middle East
David Rohde, from the Christian Science Monitor, Serbia
Bob Simon, from CBS
John Simpson, from BBC
Michael Kelly
Caryle Murphy, from the Washington Post, Kuwait
Joe the Plumber
Ernie Powell
Ryszard Kapuscinski,
Chris Hedges |
