This author needs no introduction! Ernie Pyle is one of the most famous war correspondents ever known! If future readers never heard of him, this is the book to begin to get to know him! His style of writing so smooth and direct, brings the history of World War Two home to its readers; Just like he did during the war, as he followed the soldiers, sailors, marines and flyers around all the war’s theaters and reported their stories!

BOOKS
Book Review: ‘Brave Men’: War Correspondent Ernie Pyle in World War II
The writings of Ernie Pyle, journalist on the frontlines
BY MARK LARDAS MARCH 29, 2023

Ernie Pyle was the most beloved war correspondent of World War II. He
covered the war from North Africa to Northern France in the European
theater before going to the Pacific to report on the Okinawa invasion.

“Brave Men,” originally published in 1944, is a classic collection of Pyle’s
writings. It covers his activities from the invasion of Sicily in July of 1943
through the liberation of Paris in August of 1944. The book was made up of
his newspaper columns. Some were updated to reflect changes since he
wrote them, noting what happened to those he had written about.

In the book, he lives in many different places: aboard a landing ship tank
(LST) headed to Anzio, with engineers in Sicily; with an infantry company
and artillery unit in Italy; among the aircrews of a dive bomber unit; a
light bomber unit, and medium bomber unit in Italy, and England
ordinance; and anti–aircraft units in France. He then told the story of the
men (and occasional women) who belonged to it. Nothing grand, but
rather relating the everyday experiences of life.

Pyle’s style is what made him so popular back then, and why he is still worth reading today. He looks at the war from a retail level. He mentioned those he encountered by name, giving their home town, and occasionally their street address. (Modern readers can look them up on Google Earth and wonder if today’s residents know of its heritage.) His prose is straightforward and spare, highly readable.

Most of those he wrote about were not famous. A few, like Bill Mauldin, were becoming famous. Others, like future sportscaster Lindsey Nelson, would become famous in the 1950s through the 1970s, but others were unknown GIs in World War II. (Internet searches on names Pyle mentions sometimes yield interesting surprises.)

The book contains some of Pyle’s best writing, including his best-known column, “The Death of Captain Waskow.” It follows a pattern pioneered by Pyle pre-war, roving the United States, looking for ordinary people with interesting stories. It was a format followed by Charles Kuralt postwar and Salena Zito today.

“Brave Men” is being re-released in a new edition with an introduction by Pyle biographer David Chrisinger. It is worth reading, or reading again. It is a reminder of the best in America back in the 1940s. Yet much of what he writes about still exists in today’s small-town and rural America.

Mr. Pyle is a personal hero of mine. The original publication of "Brave Men" was the first non-fiction book I read as a nine-year-old young man. Mr. Pyle was the voice of the fighting man on various fronts. This is a great reissue that I hope many people read when it is published in May of 2023. I will visit his grave in Punchbowl National Cemetery in Honolulu Hawaii buried next to so many of the men he represented and continues to introduce new generations too.