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

David Nichols

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394549236 ISBN 13: 9780394549231

Publisher: Random House, 1986

Synopsis

This first major collection of Pyle's World War II dispatches is drawn from his complete body of work, from the Battle of Britain to the war in the Pacific and includes a fifty page biography of Pyle by David Nichols

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Reviews

YA Pulitzer Prize winner Pyle became famous by focusing his journalistic abilities on the foot soldier of World War II. His best dispatches are compiled here in chronological order. The essays included here are either descriptions of war-torn countries and their people, infantry life, or details of soldiers' thoughts and emotions. There is a 34 - page biographical essay and a few black-and-white photographs. Short and easy to read, these essays will appeal to high - school students wanting information on World War II and will be a valuable resource for social studies classes. It will bring the war home to students in a meaningful and poignant way. Pat Royal, Prince George's County Public School System, Md.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In World War II, correspondent Ernie Pyle won worldwide acclaim for syndicated columns he wrote almost daily with simplicity and an eye for emotional detail while sharing in the life of front-line soldiers he once described as "destined merely by chance to suffer and die for the rest of us." Compiled here are columns from battle zones in North Africa, Italy, England, France and Okinawa, telling how American foot-slogging GIs and those of other military branches endured cold, filth, exhaustion, fear, sickness, wounds and death all around them with persistence, inventiveness and even humor. A Pyle column on the death in Italy of an infantry captain much revered by his men inspired a motion picture, The Story of GI Joe. Nichols has edited the work selectively, with comments linking events and a sketch of Pyle's rather unhappy personal life. The columnist was killed by a Japanese sniper on a Pacific island as the war neared its end.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Pyle is the best-remembered of the World War II correspondents, partly for the businesslike, earthy, down-home tone his columns had. He spent months in foxholes, living with and talking to the soldiers he came to love, and he explained the dangerous, dirty, exhausting, frightening business of infantry warfare better than anyone else. His death on Ie Shima was regarded as a national loss. This collection of the best of his wartime writings shows why. Nichols's 37-page biographical essay adds necessary perspective to Pyle's work. Very highly recommended for any World War II or journalism collection. BOMC alternate. Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army TRALINET Ctr., Fort Monroe, Va.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394549236
• ISBN 13: 9780394549231
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432