Last Chapter

I first learned about World War II news correspondent Ernie Pyle when I was a boy in the 1960s. An elementary school reading book included an article about him and did not gloss over the fact he died at the hands of a Japanese machine gunner on April 17, 1945.

His story stuck with me, perhaps because my father fought in World War II, just like the soldiers Pyle wrote about.

Pyle mostly covered the European theater, becoming beloved by Americans as he reported on the lives of average soldiers. But in early 1945, he moved to the Pacific. In… show more.