Fight Pay

Even in wartime, the public demands information…about everything. During World War II, the demand for information was being met by a correspondent named Ernie Pyle, who was also America’s most popular war correspondent. Ernest “Ernie” Taylor Pyle was born on August 3, 1900, on the Sam Elder farm near Dana, Indiana, in rural Vermillion County, Indiana. His parents were Maria (Taylor) and William Clyde Pyle. Ernie’s dad was a tenant farmer on the Elder property at the time of Ernie’s birth. As was common in those days, neither of Pyle’s parents attended school beyond the eighth grade. Ernie first began writing a column for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain in 1935. His column was so interesting and widely loved, that it was eventually syndicated to some 200 US newspapers. The column related the lives and hopes of typical citizens, thereby capturing America’s affection. When the United States entered World War II in 1942, Pyle was a natural choice for war correspondent. His area of coverage was the North Africa campaign, the invasions of Sicily and Italy, and on June 7, 1944, he went ashore at Normandy the day after the Allied forces landed.

Pyle’s stories were different than tales of the battles the US participated in. They were always written about the experiences of enlisted men instead. He described the D-Day scene as, “It was a lovely day for strolling along the seashore. Men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever. Men were floating in the water, but they didn’t know they were in the water, for they were dead.” It was a devastatingly poignant story, and that same year, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished correspondence, and in 1945 he traveled to the Pacific to cover the war against Japan.

Pyle could always be found among the men in the platoon he was covering. He wasn’t aloof, but rather he was one of them…sharing cigarettes and good conversations. Because Pyle was not military, he was able to go home when he wanted or needed to, and so he made a couple of trips home to take care of his wife, Geraldine “Jerry” when she was ill. Nevertheless, his heart was with the infantry, and so he returned to tell their story. Pyle wrote that he was especially fond of the infantry “because they are the underdogs.” To make his point, Pyle wrote a column from Italy in 1944 proposing that soldiers in combat should get “fight pay,” just as airmen received “flight pay.” In May 1944 the United States Congress passed a law that became known as the Ernie Pyle bill. It authorized 50 percent extra pay for combat service. Pyle was destined to leave a legacy in the world of infantry fighting, and on April 18, 1945, Ernie Pyle made his own “last stand” when he was killed by enemy fire on the island of Ie Shima. After his death, President Harry S Truman spoke of how Pyle “told the story of the American fighting man as the American fighting men wanted it told.” Pyle is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.