August 3: Ernie Pyle, The Consummate War Correspondent

"ALGERIA, JANUARY, 1943: Men who bring our convoys from America, some of whom have just recently arrived, tell me the people at home don't have a correct impression of things over here."

Ernie Pyle looked at his job as a war correspondent during World War II as one in which he told the unflinching truth, not based on political agendas or political correctness, and

As a result, Pyle was one of the most respected journalists of his era, beloved by the men – the common soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines – that he worked with because he wrote their stories, their lives, their truth, and he shared their dangers.

He had that rarity among men – the ability to look at where he was emotionally and professionally, and where he needed to be. He wrote September 11, 1943 in an article titled “Fed Up and Bogged Down”:

“Perhaps you who read this column wonder why I came home just at this special time, when events are boiling over in Italy.

Well, I might as well tell you truthfully. I knew, of course, that the Italian invasion was coming up, but I chose to skip it. I made that decision because I realized, in the middle of Sicily, that I had been too close to the war for too long.

I was fed up, and bogged down. Of course you say other people are too, and they keep going on. But if your job is to write about the war, you’re very apt to begin writing unconscious distortions and unwarranted pessimisms when you get too tired.”

Ernie Pyle – always called Ernest by he parents – was born on August 3, 1900, on a tenant farm near Dana, Indiana. He was the only child of William and Maria Taylor Pyle. A shy youth, he worked his way through school more or less as a loner, sitting alone during recess in elementary school, and seeking the quiet and solitude of long walks in high school and during his college years.

He was not an exceptional student, nor a motivated one. He got by grade-wise, with no real ambitions. He took journalism at Indiana State University not because he had a real, sincere desire to become a journalist, but because it was an easy grade.

Pyle would quit Indiana University the semester prior to graduation in order to accept a job at the LaPorte, Indiana newspaper. He worked there three months, then moved to Washington, D.C. to accept the job of reporter, then managing editor, of the Washington Daily News. He survived, desk-bound, for three years. He married Geraldine Siebolds in 1925, then quit his job in 1926 so he could see America with his new wife and Ford roadster.

After travelling more than 9,000 miles, Pyle went to work at the Evening Herald in New York for a year, and then returned to the Daily News. In 1928 Pyle became the nation’s first aviation columnist at a time when aviation was beginning to boom. It was during his stint as an aviation columnist that Pyle honed his story-telling ability that would provide the format for his columns during World War II.

In 1932 Pyle became the managing editor of the Daily News, but would leave the paper in 1935, hired away by the opportunity to write a national travel column for the Scripps-Howard syndicate. It was the era of the Great Depression in America, and Pyle travelled America to write nationally syndicated columns about the places he visited and the people he met. The column was very popular, and would continue until 1942.

Pyle began to achieve national fame during a trip to war-ravaged London in 1940 – a trip exercising his writing ability and setting the course for the rest of his life. His stories of the bombing of London gave Americans a glimpse of the war that they had not recognized before. Using word pictures, Pyle painted a portrait that struck at the heart of America while reporting on one of the biggest Nazi raids on London of the war:

"It was a night when London was ringed with fire…"

Returning to London as a war correspondent during the summer of 1942, Pyle would start the process that made him man loved by those who came in contact with him. He seldom took notes – with the exception of names and addresses – instead preferring to take the images he saw and the stories that came with those images, store them in his mind, then leave the front lines to write his story. He was treated as an autonomous reporter by his bosses, who allowed him the latitude that he needed to get the story.

Pyle had the gift of using his feelings and emotions to accurately, humanely, and compassionately interpret the scene for the soldiers. He wrote about the common solder, never portraying war as glamorous – but portraying it truthfully, digging beneath the surface of the men he met to find out why they did what they did, and risked what they risked, day-after-day.

And he was able to share those findings with the American public, and the public took pride in the men that he wrote about. Pyle wrote about privates, ambulance drivers, front line infantry, Captains and Generals – but not about the politics of war. He won a Pulitzer Prize with his column on the honor that the men serving under Captain Waskow paid to him when his lifeless body was brought down from a mountain in Italy – a column showing the death that occurred in war, but also the comradeship that often goes beyond the understanding of those who have not experienced it.

Pyle served in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily and later Anzio, and in Normandy. He returned back to the United States briefly in late 1944, tired and dispirited. He had written in one column:

“When you get to Anzio you waste no time getting off the boat, for you have been feeling pretty much like a clay pigeon in a shooting gallery. But after a few hours in Anzio you wish you were back on the boat, for you could hardly describe being ashore as any haven of peacefulness.”

He didn’t want to go back to the world of combat, but he felt he had to – to do otherwise would, in his mind, be unpatriotic to the country he loved. After a brief respite he went to the Pacific to write the story of the invasion of Okinawa.

He landed on Okinawa with the Marines and Army units, landing on a portion of the beach where there was practically no Japanese resistance. A few days later he went to a small island near Okinawa called Ie Shima. It had been captured by the Americans, but there were still pockets of resistance on the island.

On April 18, 1945, Pyle was riding in a jeep with the commander of the 77th Infantry Division when the vehicle came under fire by a Japanese machine gun. Everyone hit the dirt by the side of the road, and when Pyle raised his head to check on the others he was hit in the head by a bulled, dying instantly.

He was buried at first on Ie Shima, and then reinterred in 1949 at the Punchbowl Cemetery in Honolulu.

America had lost a unique man. Pyle’s columns, compiled into books such as Here Is Your War and Brave Men, bring the story of the 'Greatest Generation' to those today who know virtually nothing of the men who fought - and died - in World War II - if they will read it. It is my privilege to have early editions of both of these books as a treasured possession.

Click here to read a collection of stories by Ernie Pyle from Indiana University, and click here to view YouTube Tribute to Ernie Pyle.

LOCAL LIBRARY RESOURCES:

Ernie Pyle, Here Is Your War
James Tobin, Ernie Pyle: America’s Eyewitness to World War II

WEB RESOURCES:

Article by Pyle in Stars and Stripes
Ernie Pyle
Indiana School of Journalism
Indiana School of Journalism: Biography
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
NBC
New York Times Obituary
Wikipedia

PHOTO SOURCES:

Ernie Pyle, Find A Grave, by T. Houston
Pyle's Corona typewriter

Pyle at Anzio http://journalism.indiana.edu/archive/news/041505pyle/
With Marines on the way to Okinawa
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Jan. 13: The Flat, Calm, Twangy Midwestern Voice

Do you know who this is?
-He was an author and radio newscaster.
-He was the head of the Office of War Information (OWI) during World War II
-He portrayed himself as a journalist in the 1951 science fiction classic, The Day The Earth Stood Still

Elmer Davis is a name that many may not have heard of. He was not a general or admiral, great politician or explorer. He was an Indiana newsman who moved into radio, and won the hearts of America during the tension filled years of WW II with honest news reporting.

Elmer was born in Aurora, Indiana on January 13, 1890, the son of Elam Davis - a cashier for the First National Bank of Aurora – and Louise Severin Davis – a school principal. He would grow up in Aurora, and would start working for the Aurora Bulletin as a printer’s devil after his freshman year in high school. Elmer was small in build, and athletics were not his strong point. However, he did have a sharp mind and an intense interest in writing – a combination that would move him into a career in which he would excel.

Elmer started his professional writing career as a reporter with the Indianapolis Star, where he was paid $25 a week, and worked for them during his years at Franklin College

In 1910 Elmer was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. His time at Oxford was cut short when Elmer’s father became very ill, and eventually died. While his stay in England was short, Elmer was able to make frequent trips to the Continent during that time, and during one of these trips met his future wife, Florence.

When Elmer returned to America he began working as editor of Adventure magazine. He left this job after a year (in 1913) to go back to his true love – the news – and work for the New York Times, a job he held for the next decade, interviewing people from boxer Jack Dempsey to evangelist Billy Sunday. Here he was very successful. Reporters were paid for the printed space of their article – the longer the article, the more the pay. Samuel T. Williamson, a fellow Times reporter said of Davis: he "benefited from his facility with the English language," which "made it possible for him to write a long story so phrased that a copy-reader couldn't cut it much."

In 1923, Elmer left the Times to become a successful freelance writer, writing both fiction and nonfiction articles for a number of publications, as well as books. His big break would come in 1939.

Columbia Broadcasting called Elmer in August 1939, asking him to fill in as a news analyst for H. V. Kaltenborn. Kaltenborn was in Europe reporting on the various crisis occurring there that would eventually lead to World War II. Elmer later wrote: "I had done some broadcasting at odd times over the past dozen years, had sometimes even pinch-hit for Kaltenborn during his absences; but to fill in for him in such a crisis as this was a little like trying to play center-field in place of Joe DiMaggio." He became an instant success, and was welcomed into the homes of millions of Americans every evening. His news analaysis was a brief five minutes long, but it summed up the events shaping the world in a concise, clear manner. Edward R. Murrow, one of the great newscasters of the day, felt that Elmer’s success was due in part to his Indiana accent: it reminded folks of home. Murrow wrote to Elmer: "I have hopes that broadcasting is to become an adult means of communication at last. I've spent a lot of time listening to broadcasts from many countries . . . and yours stand out as the best example of fair, tough-minded, interesting talking I've heard."

Listen to one of his broadcasts here.

In one of his broadcasts, Elmer recommended the government organize news information under one organization. This would lead Franklin Roosevelt to establish the Office of War Information (OWI), and to ask Elmer Davis to be the head of it. Davis eventually accepted, and created a powerful organization with the goal: "This is a people's war, and the people are entitled to know as much as possible about it." The OWI was charged with coordinating government information about the events and progress of the war effort to the home front. Elmer was in continual confrontation with the military over what the public had the right to know.

When the war ended, so did the OWI, and Elmer went back to radio broadcasting, this time with ABC. He took a stand against the abuses of McCarthyism in the early 1950’s – risky business at the time, though typical for Elmer, as his statement “The first and great commandment is, don't let them scare you” shows. In 1958 he would suffer a stroke, dying on May 18th of that year.

While his work in radio is largely unrecognized today – reflecting, perhaps, the huge influence of television during the last half-century - Elmer Davis brought critical analysis and commentary to the events of the day, was willing to stand up for his basic principles, and lived his life wanting to honestly inform the American public of news both good and bad. He crusaded against the enemies of freedom of expression, and used a common sense in his approach that is often missing in other commentators. The New York Times stated that he was "the Mount Everest of commentators, towering in serenity and grandeur over the foothill Cassandras of his time." He’s a man we need to remember.

Web Resources:

American Journalism Review
Elmer Davis Biography
OTR Davis Biography
Life Article 1943
OWI
Time Article 1940
Time Magazine Article 1942
Time Article 1943

Local Library Resources:
No local library resources are available.

January 1, 1883: Father of the CIA

Who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medal and Medal of Honor- our nation’s three top military honors – as well as the National Security Medal– our nation’s top civilian honor?

Who was was knighted by the British for his activities during World War II?

Who began his intelligence work while on his honeymoon?
And the give-away question: who is credited as the founding father of the CIA?

The Donovan’s welcomed in the New Year in 1883 with the birth of their son William. William J. Donovan was born on January 1, 1883 in Buffalo, N.Y. He graduated from Columbia University – where he was the quarterback and star of the football team - in 1905 with a BA and went on to graduate in 1908 with a law degree. .

After his graduation, Donovan began a law practice in Buffalo. Five years later – in 1912 - he was instrumental in founding a cavalry troop of the New York National Guard in his hometown. When the cavalry was called out for operations along the Mexican border, Donovan left his law books. By the outbreak of World War I, he was a Major.

Donovan earned the nickname “Wild Bill” in France as a battalion commander and later as regimental C.O. of the 165th Infantry--popularly then known as the "Fighting 69th New York." He was wounded three times, and received a number of combat decorations including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Medal of Honor for gallantry in action at Landre-et St. Georges during the Meuse Argonne offensive.

The Medal of Honor Citation:

Lt. Col. Donovan personally led the assaulting wave in an attack upon a very strongly organized position, and when our troops were suffering heavy casualties he encouraged all near him by his example, moving among his men in exposed positions, reorganizing decimated platoons, and accompanying them forward in attacks. When he was wounded in the leg by machine-gun bullets, he refused to be evacuated and continued with his unit until it withdrew to a less exposed position.

Donovan’s spy career began in 1919 when Assistant Secretary of the Navy (and former Columbia University friend and classmate) Franklin D. Roosevelt asked him to go to Siberia and report on anti-Bolshevik operations and Japanese activity in the area during the Russian (Bolshevik) Revolution. Donovan went, reported back, and then went on to become a successful Wall Street lawyer.

"The door for intelligence work opened for me when I undertook my first secret mission while on my honeymoon in Japan in 1919. The United States Government asked me to take a two-month trip to Siberia to report on the anti-Bolshevik movement in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Well, it wasn't your usual honeymoon, but Mrs. Donovan was very understanding. The mission was successful and opened doors to many more missions for the government. I was heading down the intelligence path and I was loving it."

Despite Donovan’s difference in political views – he was a Republican – and his outspoken opposition to the New Deal, he and Roosevelt remained close friends, in no small part to their shared international view on the dangers of Germany and Tokyo during the 1930’s.

While Donovan officially remained a Republican Wall Street lawyer, he led a double life cloaked in secrecy. Roosevelt sent Donovan to Ethiopia in 1935-1936 during the Italian invasion of that country. He was also sent to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, to Britain in 1940 as the Phony War turned real, working closely with the British Secret Intelligence Service, and to various parts of Europe and the Middle East in 1941 to personally observe conditions and report back to the President.

In 1941 Donovan returned to the US to be appointed civilian head of the Office of Coordinator of Information (COI) the purpose of this organization was to coordinate the various intelligence efforts of America’s various intelligence organizations – including such organizations as the FBI, Naval Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Department of State, and other groups. Intense jurisdictional battles would follow as each organization was resistant to yield any of its power or any of the intelligence it gathered. As the US entered World War II, the need for a combined intelligence gathering organization under military leadership led to the dissolving of the COI and the foundation of the OSS. The following year – 1942 – he was recalled to active duty as a colonel and appointed to head the military Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He used his contacts – especially the British - gained from his years of visits to Europe to establish an ever-increasingly effective intelligence organization that operated in Africa, Asia, and Europe. During this time Donovan was promoted to brigadier, then major, general, and would head the OSS during its brief – but successful – tenure. The OSS was dissolved in October 1945.

Donovan reverted back to his occupation as lawyer when he was appointed to be the special assistant to chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.

During the war Donovan became convinced of the need of a post-war civilian intelligence organization – resulting in the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947 by President Truman.

"Espionage is not a nice thing, nor are the methods employed exemplary. Neither are demolition bombs nor poison gas.... We face an enemy who believes one of his chief weapons is that none but he will employ terror. But we will turn terror against him...."

Donovan would not be appointed to head the new organization. Instead, he was appointed Ambassador to Thailand by President Eisenhower in 1954. Later poor health would force him to resign. He died on February 8, 1959.

As an article in Columbia University’s Columbians notes:

But, for better or worse, his legacy as the founding figure of the CIA has had enormous influence over the conduct of U.S. foreign and national-security policy over the past fifty years. His statue in the main entrance to the CIA building attests to his perpetual presence as the guiding spirit of the organization.