The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle by Ray E. Boomhower



A strong, short biography of the corresppondent who gave us the GI's "worm's eye view" of WW II

Ernie Pyle with Marines bound for Okinawa
Ernie Pyle (1900-1945) was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who wrote for Washington, D.C. and New York City newspapers before the war. But, he became a beloved figure due to his Pulitzer Prize-winning work during World War II, especially in the European Theater. As one of the soldiers quoted in this biography said, "He was...our spokesman. It was not that his column told us things we did not know or feel, but the fact that we knew you folks at home could read it, and get to know and understand."

The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle is published by the Indiana Historical Society Press because Pyle was originally from the small town of Dana, Indiana, near Terre Haute. The Indiana Historical Society has access to literally millions of Indiana-related historical photographs and that library of pictures is put to good use in this biography. Most of the photos aren't just the standard posed shots, but they show Pyle interacting with his favorite soldiers - the G.I. (Infantry). You can see his relaxed style and his curiosity about everything - including looking down the business end of a 155 mm gun, cooking on a Coleman stove in France, walking among the rubble of the hotel that he was in when a German shell hit it, talking with nurses, officers, and even washing his feet in his own helmet.

The book is actually intended to be a biography for advanced middle school students or high school students to read, but it is excellent for any student of World War II history, no matter his or her age. At the end of the text, 3 of his complete, unedited columns are re-printed, including the sparse and moving "The Death of Captain Waskow".

Strongly recommended.

 I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle by Ray E. Boomhower

 Reviewed on March 9, 2008.

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 8, 2014 at 8:25 PM

    Ernie seemed to be devoted to reporting the war and the soldiers as just people in an impossible situation and somehow cope. No political motives, now most reporters have an agenda, some personal belief they have and try to use reporting to further their beliefs. Nobody just reports for the sake of informing others of the experience of others but convince others their political motives are correct

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

BRIAN EPSTEIN: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
Published by Hourly History in 2024. Brian Epstein was a record store owner from Liverpool that heard the Beatles play in a local club and decided that they were going to be really big and he knew how to make that happen. He asked for a meeting to discuss being their manager and about two months later they had an official deal. The young Beatles were impressed by Epstein. He dressed well, had polished mannerisms, drove a nice car, and had the most successful record store in Liverpool.  Not much about Epstein's earlier ventures would have indicated that Epstein would have had any success at managing the Beatles. He was a college dropout and had bounced around from one thing to another until his father let him use part of the family store to sell records. He parlayed that into a stand-alone store and became well-known in the Liverpool music scene.  To be fair, this was a different music scene than what followed from the 1970s. It was very much a bottom up industry - a band could...
Read more

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL by Kurt Vonnegut and Ryan North.

Image
Adapted by Ryan North. Illustrated by Albert Monteys. Graphic novel published in 2020 by Archaia.  Original novel published in 1969. This is my third review of Slaughterhouse-Five. I've reviewed the audiobook , the written novel , and now the graphic novel.  All are different, of course. I've given 5 out of 5 stars to every version, but the graphic novel is the weakest of the three. It's a good graphic novel, but it seemed a little thin when compared to the novel. It's good for its medium. I'm not going to review the plot of one of the most famous anti-war books of the last century - it's too well-known for that. Vonnegut can be weird, but he's always approachable. He writes in an friendly, easy to follow style, no matter if it is the audiobook, the written novel, or this graphic novel. But, if the very idea of reading this book intimidates you, read the graphic novel. It hits the main plot points and it would certainly support you if you went ahead and read...
Read more

VICKSBURG, 1863 by Winston Groom

Image
Originally published by Knopf in 2009. Winston Groom will always be best known as the author of Forrest Gump , but he should be equally well known as the author of a series of well-told American histories. Included in those histories is a trilogy of Civil War histories that focus on the Western Theater of the war. Vicksburg 1863 is the second book in the trilogy, but it can be easily read as a stand-alone history. After a short introduction to the war itself, it follows Grant's campaign to take the Mississippi River away from the Confederacy, beginning with a mess of a battle in Missouri that proved nothing of any importance except that Grant was game to fight and push forward, even if the conditions were not perfect. That, it turns out, was pretty much the key to Grant's eventual success in this campaign and in the war. From there, we follow Grant through Kentucky, into Tennessee and the terrible Battle of Shiloh. Although ultimately successful, this marked a low point for Gra...
Read more

JOHN DENVER: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
Published in January of 2025 by Hourly History. Hourly History specializes in biographies and histories that take about an hour to read.  In this case, Hourly History has a history of a favorite in my household as I grew up - John Denver. The book gives a good accounting of his early life, his early struggles as a musician, and his impressive drive that just kept pushing him forward until he made it. Once he made it, there was no one bigger than John Denver - He had a series of number one songs, number one albums, multiple awards, and movies and TV show appearances. But, it all seemed to come at the expense of his personal life. This little biography covers the timeline of his life pretty well, but skimps on any sort of analysis on his uneasy position as a Country Music artist. For example, he won their official awards, but many mainstay country music artists considered him an interloper - a folk artist who was sort of assigned the title of "country artist." Still, this was a...
Read more

THE BIG EMPTY (Elvis Cole/Joe Pike #20) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

Image
Published by Brilliance Audio in 2025. Read by Luke Daniels. Duration: 8 hours, 25 minutes. Unabridged. My synopsis: Elvis Cole is back on the case in The Big Empty . This time around he is working for a social media personality that specializes in making muffins and making people who watch the videos feel included, like they are talking to the girl next door.  This social media star wants to hire Cole to figure out why her dad went missing about 10 years before. She hired an quality Private Investigations firm earlier, but the results were inconclusive. Her handlers are not enthused about reopening old wounds, but she overrules them. Cole heads out to the small town (by L.A. standards) where her father disappeared and finds lots of stuff - including people who are determined to keep the secrets of the past buried in the past... My review: This was a complicated mystery with an ending that leaves a lot of moral questions about what is best for just a few people vs. what is best for...
Read more

NPR AMERICAN CHRONICLES: WORLD WAR I (audiobook) by NPR

Image
Multicast performance Duration: 3 hours, 25 minutes National Public Radio (NPR) has gone through its archives and pulled out almost thirty stories about World War I in honor of the 100th anniversary of the start of the war. The stories include interviews with soldiers and historians and various authors.  World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973) in his Spad plane in October of 1918. Topics include a look at pre-World War I Europe, a look at the creator of the  Sopwith Camel, discussions of several battles, hand-created masks for men whose faces were damaged in the war, a mini-biography of America's famed flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, a look at the post-war Bonus Army during the Great Depression and audio visits to several World War I museums, including one that recognizes Herbert Hoover's efforts to feed Belgium during the war (mostly forgotten in America). The audio quality of all of these stories is excellent since they were all originally broadcast o...
Read more

The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing (audiobook) by John Perry

Image
Published by HighBridge Audio in 2012 Read by Brian Holsopple Duration: 1 hour, 48 minutes Unabridged. A re you the kind of person who has the best of intentions but continually puts important projects aside to do other things? Is your work environment organized horizontally (stuff spread all over the desk, open chairs and any other flat surface) rather than vertically (in a filing cabinet)? Do you find that even though you put things off you still get a whole lot of stuff done - just not the stuff that you were supposed to get done? If any of these descriptions sound like you than you should check out this audiobook. I have to admit, all of those descriptions describe me. Right now I am writing a review of a fun audiobook rather than writing one of a book I read three weeks ago that was not a particularly well done book. But, I am writing and that means one more book review will be checked off of my "to-do" list. John Perry is a philosophy professor at Stanford. Wh...
Read more

Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and the Twilight of the West by Mark Steyn

Image
Fascinating, entertaining and important Published in 2009 by Stockade Books. For those of you who are not aware, Mark Steyn was brought before three courts of Canada's Human Rights Commission for violating the human rights of some Muslim students and the Canadian Islamic Congress. You see, in Canada, your right not to be offended is more important than your right to speak your mind (except in the hypocritical cases Steyn has fun with throughout the book). What was Steyn's crime? Maclean's magazine printed excerpts from his book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It . This was a bestseller in America and Canada but if he was found guilty the books would be pulled from all Canadian bookstores and Maclean's would have to be minded by politically correct nanny censors. Steyn is continually amazed that "large numbers of Canadians apparently think there's nothing wrong in subjecting the contents of political magazines to the approval of agents of the...
Read more

THE FEARLESS BENJAMIN LAY: THE QUAKER DWARF WHO BECAME the FIRST REVOLUTIONARY ABOLITIONIST (audiobook) by Marcus Rediker

Image
Published in 2017 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Cornell Womack. Duration: 7 hours, 2 minutes. Unabridged. As the title states, Benjamin Lay (1682-1759) was indeed a Quaker and a dwarf. He grew up in the Quaker faith in England, learned how to spin cloth and sew gloves and then took those skills to see and became a sailor. Eventually, he settled in Barbados and became a merchant. Barbados was a plantation colony and Lay got to know several of the slaves and their owners and the experience turned him into an abolitionist, a concept that was nearly unknown in a world where slavery was commonplace. Lay moved to Philadelphia and naturally joined the local Quakers. Lay had always been an agitator back in England and was often in trouble with local church officials for questioning what they were teaching. Now, he ramped things up considerably in the hopes of convincing the Quakers that slavery was an evil that should not be tolerated in their midst. He published an anti-slavery book that was p...
Read more

THE BROKEN CONSTITUTION: LINCOLN, SLAVERY, and the REFOUNDING of AMERICA (audiobook) by Noah Feldman

Image
  Published in 2021 by Macmillan Audio. Read by the author, Noah Feldman. Duration: 11 hours, 14 minutes. Unabridged. In The Broken Constitution Feldman argues that the Constitution as it was known to Congressman Abraham Lincoln (he served in the Congress from 1847-1849) was already a broken Constitution and maybe had been broken since it had been ratified in 1788. What caused this break? No real surprise - slavery. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) Feldman details the compromises that had been in place to induce the Southern states to join a stronger Federal union and how those compromises were re-hashed in the decades that followed in acts like the Missouri Compromise (1820), the Nullification Crisis (1832-33) and the Compromise of 1850. The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 only heightened tensions between the slave states and the rest of the union. Feldman's point is that if the Constitution were not already broken, these crises wouldn't have been so dramatic and...
Read more