Synopses & Reviews
When a machine-gun bullet ended the life of war correspondent Ernie Pyle in the final days of World War II, Americans mourned him in the same breath as they mourned Franklin Roosevelt. To millions, the loss of this American folk hero seemed nearly as great as the loss of the wartime president.
If the hidden horrors and valor of combat persist at all in the public mind, it is because of those writers who watched it and recorded it in the faith that war is too important to be confined to the private memories of the warriors. Above all these writers, Ernie Pyle towered as a giant. Through his words and his compassion, Americans everywhere gleaned their understanding of what they came to call "The Good War."
Pyle walked a troubled path to fame. Though insecure and anxious, he created a carefree and kindly public image in his popular prewar column -- all the while struggling with inner demons and a tortured marriage. War, in fact, offered Pyle an escape hatch from his own personal hell.
It also offered him a subject precisely suited to his talent -- a shrewd understanding of human nature, an unmatched eye for detail, a profound capacity to identify with the suffering soldiers whom he adopted as his own, and a plain yet poetic style reminiscent of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. These he brought to bear on the Battle of Britain and all the great American campaigns of the war -- North Africa, Sicily, Italy, D-Day and Normandy, the liberation of Paris, and finally Okinawa, where he felt compelled to go because of his enormous public stature despite premonitions of death.
In this immensely engrossing biography, affectionate yet critical, journalist and historian James Tobin does an Ernie Pyle job on Ernie Pyle, evoking perfectly the life and labors of this strange, frail, bald little man whose love/hate relationship to war mirrors our own. Based on dozens of interviews and copious research in little-known archives, Ernie Pyle's War is a self-effacing tour de force. To read it is to know Ernie Pyle, and most of all, to know his war.
Review
"This is the portrait of a complex, enormously gifted but tortured writer . . . but it is much more: few books about combat journalism have so vividly depicted the fascinating interactions between war correspondents, soldiers and folks back home. . . . World War II was quintessentially Ernie Pyle's war, and Mr. Tobin brilliantly explains why." -- andlt;iandgt;The New York Times Book Reviewandlt;/iandgt;
Review
"James Tobin's magnificent new biography of Pyle should do much to renew the luster of his name and revive interest in his extraordinary work. . . . This clear-eyed, unsentimental, beautifully written biography is a classic worthy of the man it celebrates." -- andlt;iandgt;The Cleveland Plain Dealerandlt;/iandgt;
Review
"What makes this biography so fascinating . . . is the story of Pyle himself, a man seemingly driven by demons and nagged by self-doubt who accomplished so much. . . . Anyone with an interest in the power of the written word will be intrigued -- and will lament that Pyle was the sort of character unlikely to be seen again." -- andlt;iandgt;The Philadelphia Inquirerandlt;/iandgt;
Review
"Barely a half century ago Ernie Pyle was one of the most famous people in America . . . both the chronicler of the common man and its embodiment. Now, five decades after his death from Japanese fire on a small island in the Pacific, Pyle has had the good fortune to fall under the scrutiny of a sympathetic, unsentimental and scrupulous biographer. . . . The result is a thorough, revealing book." -- andlt;iandgt;The Washington Post Book Worldandlt;/iandgt;
Review
“A book every modern journalist—and citizen—should read.”—Tom Brokaw, author of
The Greatest Generation “A sprightly synthesis of literature and history… unique [and] engaging.”—Kirkus Reviews
“If one can say that reading a book titled Assignment to Hell was a delight, I say it now. The stories are so vivid and alive all these years later that I felt I was there with the legendary correspondents of World War II as they wrote their way from France to Germany.”—David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author of They Marched into Sunlight
Synopsis
andlt;bandgt;WINNER OF A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDandlt;/bandgt; andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt; Ernie Pyle, better than any other World War II journalist, conveyed the triumphs and tribulations of the common soldier trying to survive a brutal conflict. From North Africa and Normandy, Anzio and Okinawa -- where he died -- Pyle brought the war home to America. James Tobin's "superbly documented and compassionate account" (andlt;iandgt;Publishers Weeklyandlt;/iandgt;) is a classic biography of an American icon.
Synopsis
THEIR WORK ON THE FRONT LINES MADE HEADLINES In February 1943, a group of journalists—including a young wire service correspondent named Walter Cronkite and cub reporter Andy Rooney—clamored to fly along on a bombing raid over Nazi Germany. Seven of the sixty-four bombers that attacked a U-boat base that day never made it back to England. A fellow survivor, Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune, asked Cronkite if he’d thought through a lede. “I think I’m going to say,” mused Cronkite, “that I’ve just returned from an assignment to hell.”
Assignment to Hell tells the powerful and poignant story of the war against Hitler through the eyes of five intrepid reporters. Cronkite crashed into Holland on a glider with U.S. paratroopers. Rooney dodged mortar shells as he raced across the Rhine at Remagen. Behind enemy lines in Sicily, Bigart jumped into an amphibious commando raid that nearly ended in disaster. The New Yorker’s A. J. Liebling ducked sniper fire as Allied troops liberated his beloved Paris. The Associated Press’s Hal Boyle barely escaped SS storm troopers as he uncovered the massacre of U.S. soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge.
This book serves as a stirring tribute to five of World War II’s greatest correspondents and to the brave men and women who fought on the front lines against fascism—their generation’s “assignment to hell.”
Synopsis
WINNER OF A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
Ernie Pyle, better than any other World War II journalist, conveyed the triumphs and tribulations of the common soldier trying to survive a brutal conflict. From North Africa and Normandy, Anzio and Okinawa -- where he died -- Pyle brought the war home to America. James Tobin's "superbly documented and compassionate account" (Publishers Weekly) is a classic biography of an American icon.
About the Author
Timothy M. Gay is the author of Satch, Dizzy, & Rapid Robert: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball before Jackie Robinson and Tris Speaker: The Rough-and-Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend. His essays and op-eds on American history, politics, public policy, and sports have appeared in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, USA Today, and many other publications. A graduate of Georgetown University, where he majored in American history, Tim lives in Virginia with his wife and children.
Table of Contents
Prologue: "And So It Is Over"andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;1. "I Wanted to Get Out..."andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;2. "A Nice Little Column"andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;3. "A Slightly Used Secondhand Man..."andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;4. "In It to the Hilt..."andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;5. "I'll Just Drift with the War..."andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;6. "The Number-One Correspondent..."andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;7. "The Ghastly Brotherhood..."andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;8. "An Awful Knowledge..."andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;9. "You Alone Are Left Alive..."andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;10. "The Pyle Phenomenon"andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;11. "An End to This Wandering"andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Epilogue: "What I See"andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Appendix: An Ernie Pyle Samplerandlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Notesandlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;A Note on Sourcesandlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Acknowledgmentsandlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Index