Review by Booklist Review
World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle, whose ``sensory descriptions of soldier life,'' brought the war back to the home front for millions of readers, was killed in the Okinawa campaign in 1945. In the two and one-half years preceding his death, Pyle wrote a staggering six columns per week. Compiler David Nichols has sifted through the Pyle canon to produce this moving anthology of the columnist's best work. Organized chronologically and following Pyle's path from Britain during the Blitz to North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and the Pacific, the text reveals vivid details about the day-to-day life of the infantry soldier as well as offering a unique view of the basics of warfare. Throughout, Pyle's perspective is on people how the experience of war affects the individual human being. Preceding the generous selection of columns is Nichols' thoughtful biographical essay, which provides background on Pyle's life before the war and additional information on his experiences during it. Studs Terkel adds a brief foreword. Depending on one's familiarity with the subject, this volume offers a powerful introduction to the work of a major journalist or a vivid reminder of just how good Pyle was. Bibliography; to be indexed. DPD. 940.53 World War, 1939-1945 Addresses, essays, lectures [CIP] 85-18390
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In World War II, correspondent Ernie Pyle won worldwide acclaim for syndicated columns he wrote almost daily with simplicity and an eye for emotional detail while sharing in the life of front-line soldiers he once described as ``destined merely by chance to suffer and die for the rest of us.'' Compiled here are columns from battle zones in North Africa, Italy, England, France and Okinawa, telling how American foot-slogging GIs and those of other military branches endured cold, filth, exhaustion, fear, sickness, wounds and death all around them with persistence, inventiveness and even humor. A Pyle column on the death in Italy of an infantry captain much revered by his men inspired a motion picture, The Story of GI Joe. Nichols has edited the work selectively, with comments linking events and a sketch of Pyle's rather unhappy personal life. The columnist was killed by a Japanese sniper on a Pacific island as the war neared its end. (September 8) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Pyle is the best-remembered of the World War II correspondents, partly for the businesslike, earthy, down-home tone his columns had. He spent months in foxholes, living with and talking to the soldiers he came to love, and he explained the dangerous, dirty, exhausting, frightening business of infantry warfare better than anyone else. His death on Ie Shima was regarded as a national loss. This collection of the best of his wartime writings shows why. Nichols's 37-page biographical essay adds necessary perspective to Pyle's work. Very highly recommended for any World War II or journalism collection. BOMC alternate. Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army TRALINET Ctr., Fort Monroe, Va. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
YA Pulitzer Prize winner Pyle became famous by focusing his journalistic abilities on the foot soldier of World War II. His best dispatches are compiled here in chronological order. The essays included here are either descriptions of war-torn countries and their people, infantry life, or details of soldiers' thoughts and emotions. There is a 34 - page biographical essay and a few black-and-white photographs. Short and easy to read, these essays will appeal to high - school students wanting information on World War II and will be a valuable resource for social studies classes. It will bring the war home to students in a meaningful and poignant way. Pat Royal, Prince George's County Public School System, Md. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A collection of the dispatches that made Ernie Pyle the: most widely-read and best-loved American correspondent during WW II. It was Pyle, more than any other reporter, who brought the terrible carnage of what Studs Terkel ironically calls, in his graceful ""Foreword,"" ""The Good War,"" home to those newspaper readers who waited expectantly day after day for his descriptions of life in London bomb shelters, of death in the Italian hills, of retreats across North African sands, of the advance into a jubilant Paris. Written in a disarming vernacular, free of the rhetoric of most wartime reportage, these articles will be treasured by those who survived ""The Good War,"" those who waited out its end at home, even by those for whom the war is only a chapter in a history book. Nichols is to be thanked for restoring to all of us an important bit of our common history. In a sensitively written essay, Nichols provides biographical material that adds dimension to Pyle's wartime exploits. Married to a woman whose alcoholism and mental instability had her in and out of hospitals much of the time, Pyle was himself a taciturn man, restless and death-haunted, seemingly unable to express personal emotions. It is ironic, then, that he should have been acclaimed for the depths of feeling he expressed for the fighting men with whom he shared the rigors and terrors of the African, European and Pacific campaigns. It is as if in his writing, he was exposing a closely held part of himself. The articles are chosen with great discernment. The piece describing the death of Captain Waskow was printed in full on the front page of The Washington Daily News in January, 1944, and it remains as touching an indictment of war today as it was then. Many other pieces are nearly as effective. A description of the tattered flotsam lining the beach after the Normandy invasion--cigarette packs, airmail stationery, a tennis racket still in its press, ""not a string broken""--is heartbreaking in its implications of the wastefulness of death. In this post-Vietnam America, it's good to be able to return to Pyle's articles and to find there the human face of war. It's only sad that many had apparently forgotten it between the time Pyle wrote these moving vignettes and the troops started leaving for Southeast Asia. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by School Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
