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mburnamfink's review
5.0
Ernie Pyle is the doyen of war correspondents, the poet of the infantry, a delightful and engaging friend. Everybody read Ernie's columns during the war, as he provided an honest on-the-ground look at the men who made up America's army. Ernie shared their dangers and hardships, sleeping rough, dodging bullets and shells while being drawn inexorably towards the front. This quest for the truest, closest picture of the war is what makes Pyle great, and also what got him killed in the invasion of Okinawa. This book is like having a incredibly observant and empathetic friend writing letters home, and should be required reading for student of WW2.
Let me close with a few quotes that sum up Pyle's work.
"Tunisia - April 22, 1943.
When I got ready to return to my old friends at the front, I wondered if I would sense any change in them.
The most vivid change is the casual and workshop manner in which they talk about killing. They have made the psychological transition from the normal belief that taking a human life is sinful, over to a new professional outlook where killing is a craft. In fact it is an admirable thing.
As a noncombatant, my own life is in danger only by occasional chance or circumstance. Consequently I need not think of killing in personal terms, and killing to me is still murder."
[a draft of his last column, found on his body]
"On Victory in Europe - 1945
Those who are gone would not wish themselves to be a millstone of gloom around our necks.
But there are many of the living who have had burned into their brains forever the unnatural sight of cold dead men scattered over the hillsides and in the ditches along the high rows of hedge throughout the world...
Dead men by mass production.
Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous.
Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come to hate them.
These are the things that you at home need not even try to understand. To you at home they are columns of figures, or he is a near one who went away and just didn't come back. You didn't see him lying so grotesque and pasty beside the gravel road in France.
We saw him, saw him by the multiple thousands. That's the difference..."
What a writer. What a human being.
Let me close with a few quotes that sum up Pyle's work.
"Tunisia - April 22, 1943.
When I got ready to return to my old friends at the front, I wondered if I would sense any change in them.
The most vivid change is the casual and workshop manner in which they talk about killing. They have made the psychological transition from the normal belief that taking a human life is sinful, over to a new professional outlook where killing is a craft. In fact it is an admirable thing.
As a noncombatant, my own life is in danger only by occasional chance or circumstance. Consequently I need not think of killing in personal terms, and killing to me is still murder."
[a draft of his last column, found on his body]
"On Victory in Europe - 1945
Those who are gone would not wish themselves to be a millstone of gloom around our necks.
But there are many of the living who have had burned into their brains forever the unnatural sight of cold dead men scattered over the hillsides and in the ditches along the high rows of hedge throughout the world...
Dead men by mass production.
Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous.
Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come to hate them.
These are the things that you at home need not even try to understand. To you at home they are columns of figures, or he is a near one who went away and just didn't come back. You didn't see him lying so grotesque and pasty beside the gravel road in France.
We saw him, saw him by the multiple thousands. That's the difference..."
What a writer. What a human being.
zzzreads's review
5.0
“One world was a beautiful dream and the other a horrible nightmare, and I was still a little bit in each of them. As I lay on the straw in the darkness they became mixed up, and I was confused and not quite sure which was which.”
The trouble with war literature is that you want to read the experiences of those who went through the conflict, but those who are engaged in war often don’t have the literary skill to articulate what they went through. You can have a so-so memoir that is written by someone who was fortunate enough to go through hell and make it out alive, or you can have a book that is written well by someone who perhaps heard it from someone else or researched it decades after the events concluded. The only exception to this rule that comes to mind is Eugene Sledge’s masterful “With the Old Breed”. What was so enthralling about “Ernie’s War” is that it broke this rule, giving readers a remarkable account of the European, Mediterranean, and Pacific theaters of the Second World War. It blew me away.
Pyle’s dispatches don’t read as dry accounts of military campaigns, but intimate portrayals of life in war. His work is astoundingly honest. There is no oorah, flag-waving, God-bless-America patriotism, except for when describing scenes that warrant it. He doesn’t pretend that the men fighting and dying around him are doing it for any reason other than to survive. I felt as though I was reading a diary or confessional, not a work of journalism. When Pyle is scared, he talks about how scared he is. When he is weary and worn down from living in the midst of death on a daily basis, he tells you that. Pyle was in the United Kingdom, North Africa, Italy, France, and Japan. After reaching his limit in France, he decides to go home. His reason for doing so is simple and poignant: “I do hate terribly to leave right now, but I have given out. I’ve been immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused. The hurt has finally become too great”.
His job and aim was to give Americans back home an accurate portrayal of the trials that plagued those overseas. He achieved that and more. Pyle was from Indiana and had a distinct folksy prose. Some may find that to be an inappropriate juxtaposition to the content. But I loved it. My favorite example being when he describes a German general surrendering as “sourpuss”. It is likely this style is what contributed to his success and celebrity status in the States, which Pyle himself hated.
Ernie Pyle’s writing is a must-read for anyone interested in World War II. His “worm’s-eye view” of the war, focusing on individual experiences rather than the greater conflict, paints an intimate picture of what the lives of those who served were like. I read history to be transported back to a time that I don’t know. Reading Pyle’s descriptions of interactions with soldiers, the names and hometowns of whom he often gives, made the war so much more real in my mind. I’m sure that anyone else who reads it will have the same experience.
The trouble with war literature is that you want to read the experiences of those who went through the conflict, but those who are engaged in war often don’t have the literary skill to articulate what they went through. You can have a so-so memoir that is written by someone who was fortunate enough to go through hell and make it out alive, or you can have a book that is written well by someone who perhaps heard it from someone else or researched it decades after the events concluded. The only exception to this rule that comes to mind is Eugene Sledge’s masterful “With the Old Breed”. What was so enthralling about “Ernie’s War” is that it broke this rule, giving readers a remarkable account of the European, Mediterranean, and Pacific theaters of the Second World War. It blew me away.
Pyle’s dispatches don’t read as dry accounts of military campaigns, but intimate portrayals of life in war. His work is astoundingly honest. There is no oorah, flag-waving, God-bless-America patriotism, except for when describing scenes that warrant it. He doesn’t pretend that the men fighting and dying around him are doing it for any reason other than to survive. I felt as though I was reading a diary or confessional, not a work of journalism. When Pyle is scared, he talks about how scared he is. When he is weary and worn down from living in the midst of death on a daily basis, he tells you that. Pyle was in the United Kingdom, North Africa, Italy, France, and Japan. After reaching his limit in France, he decides to go home. His reason for doing so is simple and poignant: “I do hate terribly to leave right now, but I have given out. I’ve been immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused. The hurt has finally become too great”.
His job and aim was to give Americans back home an accurate portrayal of the trials that plagued those overseas. He achieved that and more. Pyle was from Indiana and had a distinct folksy prose. Some may find that to be an inappropriate juxtaposition to the content. But I loved it. My favorite example being when he describes a German general surrendering as “sourpuss”. It is likely this style is what contributed to his success and celebrity status in the States, which Pyle himself hated.
Ernie Pyle’s writing is a must-read for anyone interested in World War II. His “worm’s-eye view” of the war, focusing on individual experiences rather than the greater conflict, paints an intimate picture of what the lives of those who served were like. I read history to be transported back to a time that I don’t know. Reading Pyle’s descriptions of interactions with soldiers, the names and hometowns of whom he often gives, made the war so much more real in my mind. I’m sure that anyone else who reads it will have the same experience.
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