Imperial Valley press., 1945-04-18
Ernie Pyle Meets Death on Okinawa

to 1926. when he was overcome by
l. yen for travel. He and Jerry
lrew out their savings, bought a
| nodel-T Ford roadster, and the two
of them drove clear around the rim
Of the United States in a leisurely
way.
The trip wound up in New York,
and Ernie worked as a desk man
/ on the Evening World and the Ev-
eniing Post for a year or two, until
/ he was talked into returning to the
Washington News as telegraph edi-
tor. There he worked up a terrific
/ interest in aviation and started
doing an aviation column on the
| side. 1t was a success and Ernie
had an enormous acquaintance
among airmen who are veterans of
those days.
BATS FOR BROUN
Early in 1895 the Pyles took a va
cation in Arizona. When they got
back. the late Haywood Broun hap
pened to be taking a vaction too,
SO Ernie wrote a dozen columns
about his own vacation experiences
to fill the Broun spot in the news.
They made good reading and the
eventual result was decision by G..
B. Parker, editor-in-chief of the
Scripps- Howard newspapers, to take
Ernie off the managing editors desk
and try him out at doing a rowing
reporter job for the ScrippS-HoWard
papers.
So Ernie and Jerry set out, by
automobile. The first of his COL
umns appeared August 8, 1885, under
a Flemington New Jersey date
line. He has been writing a piece
a day ever since, except for an oc-
casioral time-out for rest.
Those early columns were leisure
ly copy, concerned with scenes. and
people and incidents encountered
as he and Jerry drove around the
country. He didn't write news"
He spent several days at the leper
eolory on Molokai Island, went up
the Yukon on a boat, flew to the
Bering shore of Alaska, went down
in mines and up on dams, drove
from Texas to Mexico City before
the famous highway was finished.
He interviewed the great and the
little His daily contained human
nterest-whethe whimsy or pathoS,
incident or personality. He event.
ually worked into so much of his
own personality that readers began
to regard this stranger as an old
friend.
GOES TO LONDON
In 1910 Ernie went to England,
and the blitz. Shortly after his ar
rival in London he went through
the great fire-bombing during the
holiday week of December, 1910, and
cabled home an account of THE
most hateful, most beautiful single
scene" he had ever witnessed. Por-
tions of the dispatch were cabled
back to London and reprinted IN
London papers.
He spent scme months in Eng
land and Scotland, and his dis
patches from there were reprinted
in book form.
lIGu llc CdlllC DdSh w WIZ SVet"NS
for a rest. He was at Edmonton,
Canada, preparing to shove off by
plane over the new air route to
Alaska. when word reached him that
his wife was dangerously i'll in AL
buouerque. He flew to Albuquerque,
and stayed with her for months un-
til she recovered.
Later he made all arrangements
for a trip that would have taken
him to Honolulu, Mauila, Hong
Kong and Australia. His clipper
booking was cancelled to make room
for propellers fer the Chinese. While
he cooled his heels, this Clipper ar
rived over the Hawaiian Islands
during the Jap attack on Pearl Har-
bOr.
In the early summer Of 1912 he
went to the British Isles, where he
spent several months with our troops
training in northern Ireland and
England.
Then came the invasion of Africa.
He did not go in with the first
wave, but arrived shortly thereafter.