He reased near Belton in Texas, he had signed up for 36th Division 143rd Infantry Regiment Company I along with two of his Brothers, but he was moved over to Company B when hewas promoted to captain. He was a man weighted with a bag sense of responsability. Waskow might habe remained as anonymous as the other fellow of the company B and I, if not for a man writing on his story. This man was Ernie Pyle.

For Monte Cassino Battlefield tours , and for Monte Cassino tours from Rome, plese have a look to my new WW2 web site here! www.montecassinowartours.com

 

 

 

If President Truman once called Ernie Pyle 'the  spokesman of the ordinary American in arms' it means that Pyle was a revoulutionary war corrispondet. It is very simple: he was not interested in war made by generals, he was there to describe the everyday life, the tribulations, the fraternalism between soldiers, the patriotism, the honour and the dignity of the US soldiers in WWII. He had the great idea to bring the hard reality of war into the homes of families worldwile. He was borno in 1900 in Dana, Indiana. He graduated in the Indiana University and he started working as a reporter and a copy editor. He was a Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting in 1944 and served as a war correspondent from 1935 untill 1945 through most of the World War II.His columns appeared  in about 200 newspapers Probably he decided to follow the U.S.Army to escape from a sad marriage with Geraldine Siebolds, he married  in 1925. He become famuos for his columns for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain. He volunteered to deploy with the men of the Army's 77th Infantry Division to report firsthand during the battle of Okinawa. On April 18th 1945 a Japanese machine gunners killed  on the beach at Je Shima one of America's most beloved reporter sending the entire nation into shock. He wanted to accompany the troops during the invasion of the small nearby island of Shima, but a buttel struck him in the temple resulting  in istant death. The soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division made a wooden coffin for him and buried him wearing his helmet. On a permanet stone monumet on Shima it was writen: 'at this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy Ernie Pyle 18 April 1945'. His new way or reporting things from the WWII continued to influence American war reporters during the Vietnam War and also beyond. He was Burried in the National Memorial Cemetry of the Pacific in Honolulu.

For Monte Cassino Battlefield tours , and for Monte Cassino tours from Rome, plese have a look to my new WW2 web site here! www.montecassinowartours.com