In honor of America’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this year, the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum is proud to present Ernie Pyle: The Soldier’s Friend at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Lew Wallace Carriage House
To the millions of Americans on the home front during World War II, Pyle’s columns in newspapers across the country offered a foxhole view of the struggle as he reported on the life and death of the average soldier. When he died April 18, 1945, on the island of Ie Shima in the Pacific, Pyle’s popularity and readership was worldwide, with his column appearing in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers.
Award-winning author and historian Ray E. Boomhower will explore Pyle’s life from his boyhood in Dana to his life as a roving correspondent with the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, to his growing fame as a columnist detailing the rigors of combat faced by the average GI during World War II. Pyle offered for his readers a “worm’s-eye view” of the war as he reported on the life, and sometimes death, of the common soldier doing the dirty work of fighting in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and France against the enemy forces of Nazi Germany. For his distinguished reporting during the war, Pyle had received journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize, in 1944. Books of his columns had been best sellers, and one of his most famous stories, describing the death of an officer named Captain Henry T. Waskow, was made into a movie, The Story of G.I. Joe, starring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum.
Boomhower is senior editor of the Indiana Historical Society Press, where he edits the quarterly popular history magazine Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. His 20 published books have examined such notable Hoosiers as astronaut Gus Grissom, President Benjamin Harrison, teacher and peace activist May Wright Sewall, World War II navy fighter pilot Alex Vraciu and Civil War general and author Lew Wallace. Boomhower’s newest book is “Wallace Terry: A Reporter’s Journey from Selma to Saigon to Bloods,” which will be published Oct. 6 by High Road Books, an imprint of the University of New Mexico Press.
This presentation is free and open to the public, and the Carriage House is ADA accessible, seating is limited and reservations are strongly suggested.
For more information visit online at www.ben-hur.com or call Thomas Meeks at 765-362-5769 or email tmeeks@ben-hur.com.
