Brave Men by Ernie Pyle, G. Kurt Piehler (Introduction)

From the Publisher

Europe was in the throes of World War II, and when America joined the fighting, Ernie Pyle went along. Long before television beamed daily images of combat into our living rooms, Pyle’s on-the-spot reporting gave the American public a firsthand view of what war was like for the boys on the front. Pyle followed the soldiers into the trenches, battlefields, field hospitals, and beleaguered cities of Europe. What he witnessed he described with a clarity, sympathy, and grit that gave the public back home an immediate sense of the foot soldier’s experience. There were really two wars, John Steinbeck wrote in Time magazine: one of maps and logistics, campaigns, ballistics, divisions, and regiments and the other a "war of the homesick, weary, funny, violent, common men who wash their socks in their helmets, complain about the food, whistle at Arab girls, or any girls for that matter, and bring themselves through as dirty a business as the world has ever seen and do it with humor and dignity and courage—and that is Ernie Pyle’s war." This collection of Pyle’s columns detailing the fighting in Europe in 1943–44 brings that war—and the living, and dying, moments of history—home to us once again.

Library Journal

Brave Men is a collection of journalist Pyle's newspaper columns from 1943 and 1944, in which he details the fighting in Europe primarily from the perspective of the common U.S. G.I. This angle of reporting brought the front-line war back to the families of those serving in the armed forces and endeared Pyle to the troops. An essential piece of Americana for all collections. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Internet Book Watch

Ernie Pyle was one of the most effective and well known battlefield correspondents of World War II. Pyle's on-the-spot reporting gave the American public a firsthand view of what war was like for their boys on the front lines he followed American service men into the trenches, battlefield combats, field hospitals, and war ravaged cities of Europe. What he witnessed he was able to vividly record and describe with clarity, sympathy, and grit to give his readership an immediate and accurate sense of the foot soldier's experience. Brave Men is a collection of Pyle's wartime newspaper columns detailing the 1943-44 fighting in Europe and endures as a fitting monument to both one correspondent's courage and journalistic expertise and the battlefield experiences of a generation of young American soldiers in the European theater. Tragically, when Pyle went to the South Pacific to continue his wartime reportage, a sniper's bullet took his life in 1945. Brave Men is an essential title for any personal, academic, or community library World War II collection.

Kirkus Reviews

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (1900-45) collected his work from WWII in two bestselling volumes, this second published in 1944, a year before Pyle was killed by a sniper's bullet on Okinawa. In his fine introduction to this new edition, G. Kurt Piehler (History/Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) celebrates Pyle's "dense, descriptive style" and his unusual feel for the quotidian GI experience-a personal and human side to war left out of reporting on generals and their strategies. Though Piehler's reminder about wartime censorship seems beside the point, his biographical context-Pyle was escaping a troubled marriage-is valuable. "Kirkus", at the time, noted the hoopla over Pyle (Pulitzer, hugely popular syndicated column, BOMC hype) and decided it was all worth it: "the book doesn't let the reader down." Pyle, of course, captures "the human qualities" of men in combat, but he also provides "an extraordinary sense of the scope of the European war fronts, the variety of services involved, the men and their officers." Despite Piehler's current argument that Pyle ignored much of the war (particularly the seamier stuff), "Kirkus "in 1944 marveled at how much he was able to cover. Back then, we thought, "here's a book that needs no selling." Nowadays, a firm push might be needed to renew interest in this classic of modern journalism.

Product Details

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Table of Contents