Ernie’s boss praised the young reporter’s direct and engaging writing style, and promoted him to copy editor. But the ever-restless reporter worked for the paper barely four months before moving to Washington, DC to take another job as a reporter for The Washington Daily News, a newly created tabloid in the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain.
Ernie’s self-deprecating and earnest manner enabled him to make friends easily, and his work ethic quickly won him the respect of his superiors. Upon Ernie’s return, and just one semester before he was to graduate, he left school to become a reporter for LaPorte (Indiana) Herald-Argus. He was delighted that his paperwork prevented him from staying in Japan so that he had to remain with the ship as it continued on to China and the Philippines. He labored in a Kentucky oil field during the summer of 1920, and in the spring of 1922 he accompanied Indiana University’s baseball team to Japan by working as a cabin boy. While still in college, Ernie took every opportunity to travel. Though Ernie majored in economics, he took a number of journalism classes and was an editor of the school newspaper. His hopes of military glory dashed, Ernie instead started college at Indiana University in the fall of 1919. After graduating high school, Ernie enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve in October 1918, but did not get a chance to see service overseas before World War I ended. Childhood acquaintances remembered him as a shy and intelligent boy who yearned for adventure and to travel the world. Ernie was an only child who grew up working on the 80-acre grain farm his parents rented. Prominent authors such as John Steinbeck, John Hersey, Pearl Buck, and Martha Gellhorn all lent their considerable talents to the war effort, but the most famous American writer during World War II was a soft-spoken journalist from Dana, Indiana, named Ernie Pyle.Įrnest Taylor Pyle was born on August 3, 1900.
Journalists, novelists, and academics were no exception. When the United States entered World War II, Americans everywhere mobilized to support the war effort. Above image: War correspondent Ernie Pyle reported on World War II from England, North Africa, Italy, France, Saipan, and Okinawa.
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