April 18, 1945, in 1945, journalist Ernie Pyle is killed while reporting from Le Jima, a small island off Okinawa. 
Pyle, known for finding stories that celebrated the “dogface G.I.”, wrote, “I love the infantry because they are the underdogs. They are the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys. They have no comforts, and they even learn to live without the necessities. And in the end, they are the guys that war can’t be won without.”

He filed reports from nearly every front of World War II, publishing two books (a third posthumously), and earning a Pulitzer Prize. While reporting in Italy he proposed that frontline troops should receive combat pay, like the flight pay airmen received. This led to Congress passing the “Ernie Pyle Bill” providing a 50% increase in pay for combat duty. 

He landed at Normandy on D-Day, witnessed the liberation of Paris and was hospitalized with “war neurosis” shortly after. 
When he returned to war coverage, he headed to the Pacific Theater aboard the USS Cabot (CVL 28) before landing to cover the invasion of Okinawa. It was there while covering the 77th Infantry Division (now the 77th Sustainment Brigade) he was killed by Japanese machine gun fire. The 77th honored him with a monument at the spot of his death.

Pyle qualified for interment in a national cemetery thanks to his U.S. Navy service in World War I. He was inducted, but the war ended before he reported to training at Great Lakes, Illinois. 

He was 44 and left a wife, Jerry (Geraldine). She died six months later from pneumonia.

Ernest “Ernie” Taylor Pyle was born in Indiana in 1900. He enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserves during World War I and served as a seaman. He attended Indiana University, but took time off from studies to travel abroad. He left school permanently in 1923, a semester shy of graduation, to write for newspapers in Indiana and Washington, D.C. He soon won acclaim as a roving journalist. When the United States entered World War II, Pyle reported from both the European (1942-1944) and Pacific (1945) theaters. The respected war correspondent received the Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1944 and was killed a year later in the Battle of Okinawa. Pyle was temporarily buried on the island of le Shima where he died. After the war, his remains were interred in Okinawa, and finally repatriated to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, HI, in 1949.

*Extracted from America's World War II Burial Program (NCA History Program, 2020), https://www.cem.va.gov/history/outreach.asp. 

The monument to Pyle erected where he died on Okinawa.

Color photo of the white obelisk monument at the place Pyle died. 

Front page of the Washington Daily News, April, 18, 1945

Front page of hte Washington Daily News with Headline "Ernie Pyle is killed.

Pyle with wool hat, overcoat and goggles on hsi forehead 

The monument on the spot Pyle died. It is a 5 foot tower wit hthe 77th Infantry Division emblem, the Statue of Liberty and reads "At this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy. Ernie Pyle, 18 April, 1945"

Black and white photo of troops near the monument to Pyle

Pyle wearing a helmet with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth

The temporary wooden sign put up where Pyle was kileld.

Picture of the wooden sign put up at the site of Pyle's death next to photo of him typing

Pyle sharing his cigarettes with Marines somewhere in the Pacific.

Pyle shares his cigarettes with Marines in the pacific They sit in the dirt next to a stone wall

National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific

Details of Ernie Pyle as a freshman member of the National Press Club here in a feature article by Gil Klein: https://www.press.org/newsroom/was-ernie-pyle-club-member-we-have-answer

Thank you for your service, Sir, and for lifting up the average service member. Rest easy.

ERNEST TAYLOR PYLE

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