Ernie Pyle (1900–1945)

From Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1938–1944

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Indiana native Ernie Pyle was one of World War II’s most famous reporters, in an era when journalists covering combat were as celebrated as movie stars. One of his best-known dispatches concerned the death of Captain Henry T. Waskow on December 14, 1943, during the Battle of San Pietro Infine in Italy. The officer was twenty-five years old. Pyle himself would live only sixteen months after the death of the “beloved” Capt. Waskow. On April 18, 1945, the forty-four-year-old journalist was traveling in a Jeep with Colonel Joseph B. Coolidge and other soldiers on Ie Shima, a small island near Okinawa, when a burst of machine-gun fire strafed the procession of vehicles. When the barrage of bullets finally stopped, Pyle asked Coolidge, “Are you all right?” before the sniper fire started up again, killing the reporter instantly. Hours after the tragedy, a “visibly shaken” Coolidge tearfully told a New York Times reporter, "I was so impressed with Pyle's coolness, calmness and his deep interest in enlisted men. They have lost their best friend." The legacy of Capt. Waskow endures seven decades after his death. Lieutenant Bill Walker, the fictional hero played by Robert Mitchum in the 1945 movie The Story of G. I. Joe, was based in part on Waskow (and the death scene in the movie is notably faithful to Pyle’s dispatch). The high school at which Waskow was student council president bears his name. And, most poignantly, Capt. Waskow had written a widely quoted letter intended for his family on the event of his death. The opening and closing passages offer advice for those of us still living.

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If you get to read this, I will have died in defense of my country and all that it stands for—the most honorable and distinguished death a man can die. It was not because I was willing to die for my country, however—I wanted to live for it—just as any other person wants to do. It is foolish and foolhardy to want to die for one’s country, but to live for it is something else. To live for one’s country is, to my mind, to live a life of service; to—in a small way—help a fellow man occasionally along the way, and generally to be useful and to serve. It also means to me to rise up in all our wrath and with overwhelming power to crush any oppressor of human rights. . . . Try to live a life of service—to help someone where you are or whatever you may be—take it from me; you can get happiness out of that, more than anything in life.

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AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, Jan. 10 — (by wireless) — In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Tex.

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"The Death of Captain Waskow" was written by the beloved WW2 American journalist Ernest Taylor Pyle. Mr Pyle wrote for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain and served as a roving correspondent beginning in 1935, traveling throughout the United States. During WW2 he reported from both the European and Pacific theaters of war until his death in combat on le Shima, an island off Okinawa, in 1945. He earned the Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1944. Captain Henry T. Waskow, from Belton, Texas, was the seventh of eight children born to German immigrants. He graduated from Trinity University in 1939. He was called up, along with his two brothers, from the reserves in 1941, received his commission and went to war. He led his men, as lieutenant than captain, through a number of engagements and eventually lost his life in combat 12 December, 1943. From Captain Waskiow's last will and testament we read these selections, "If you get to read this, I will have died in defense of my country and all that it stands for--the most honorable and distinguished death a man can die. It was not because I was willing to die for my country, however--I wanted to live for it--just as any other person wants to do. It is foolish and foolhardy to want to die for one's country, but to live for it is something else. To live for one's country is, to my mind, to live a life of service; to--in a small way--help a fellow man occasionally along the way, and generally to be useful and to serve. It also means to me to rise up in all our wrath and with overwhelming power to crush any oppressor of human rights. I made my choice, I volunteered in the Armed Forces because I thought that I might be able to help this great country of ours in it's hours of darkness and need--the country that means more to me than life itself--if I have done that, then I can rest in peace, for I will have done my share to make the world a better place in which to live. Maybe when the lights go on again all over the world, free people can be happy...again. Through good fortune and the grace of God, I was chosen a leader--an honor that meant more to me than any of you will ever know. If I failed as a leader, and I pray to God I didn't, it was not because I did not try. God alone knows how I worked and slaved to make myself a worthy leader of these magnificent men, and I feel assured that my work has paid dividends--in personal satisfaction, if nothing else. When you remember me, remember me as a fond admirer of all of you, for I thought so much of you and loved you with all my heart. My wish for all of you is that you get along well together and prosper--not in money-- but in happiness, for happiness is something that all the money in the world can't buy. Try to live a life of service--to help someone where you are or whatever you may be--take it from me; you can get happiness out of that, more than anything in life." Henry T. Waskow