ERNIE
PYLE AND AN UNKNOWN
By
Allan R. Andrews, Editor,
Pacific
Stars and Stripes, Tokyo, Japan.
First
published April 13, 1997.
I've often remarked
that cemeteries are for the living.
To walk through a quiet, garden-like compound marked with memorial
stones provokes reflection. Though many are frightened at the
prospect of traversing a graveyard, such a stroll can serve to
remind us of our mortality and help us recall those who left behind
the same work we are doing.
Late last year, business took me to Hawaii, and good timing allowed
my wife to make the trip, giving us four days in Waikiki without
the children.
For me, it was a first. I've crossed the Pacific Ocean numerous
times since moving to Japan, but this was the first time I'd ever
set foot on the soil of our 50th state.
As would any good first-time tourist, I took a tour of the Waikiki-Pearl
Harbor area. We visited the Arizona Memorial, drove through Chinatown,
stopped on a wharf not far from the Aloha Tower, and drove through
the Punchbowl to visit the war memorial cemetery on the hill.
The tour bus on which we were riding merely made a pass through
the cemetery, stopping briefly so passengers could admire some
spindly legged birds on the lawn.
I looked out the window at the headstones. We had parked directly
in front of the grave of Ernie Pyle, with the headstones of two
unknown soldiers flanking the famous reporter's resting place.
According to our guide, being buried between two unknown soldiers
was one of Pyle's requests.
Pyle died on
April 18, 1945. A sniper's bullet killed him on the island of
Ie Shima, just off the coast of Okinawa, where island-hopping
American forces were making a push toward mainland Japan.
In previous tributes written about him, it's been said that Pyle
died because he didn't duck. He apparently looked up to check
that his companions were O.K. and that's when the sniper's bullet
found him.
Saying that he didn't duck is itself a tribute to Pyle's doggedness
in covering the war; he didn't duck danger.
He covered the blitz of London; he covered the landing on the
beaches of Anzio; and when the assignment came, he went halfway
around the world to cover the other front in Okinawa.
April 18 -- the date of Pyle's death -- has been officially designated
as National Columnists Day in honor of Pyle. The organization
that pushed for the official day, the National Society of Newspaper
Columnists, wants the memory of Pyle to remind those of us who
write for a living of what comprises the best attributes of an
American columnist.
The society urges
columnists to remember Pyle and write about him each year as this
anniversary of his death comes around.
Pyle is warmly remembered and accolades for him continue even
50 years after his death. It truly impresses me that Pyle remembered
and asked to be buried among the unknowns who fought and died
in defense of their country.
Pyle dropped out of Indiana University in 1923, short of a degree,
but eager to go to work as a journalist.
Before he became famous covering World War II, Pyle was a national
columnist who had crossed the United States 35 times.
When he did go to war, Pyle knew the danger. He said ``there's
just no way to play it completely safe and still do your job.''
When then-President Harry Truman spoke to the nation of Pyle's
death, he said, ``No man in this war has so well told the story
of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it
told.''
I think Pyle wouldn't have minded one bit that I'm going to attend
to a lesser known soldier.
My colleagues
in the N.S.N.C. will forgive me and understand, I think, if I
divert my attention on April 18 of this year from Ernie Pyle and
remember someone else.
I never knew this soldier, but his name is on an award we give
annually to military journalists, and his story is mounted with
photos in display cases in our lobby at Stars and Stripes in Tokyo.
His name, along with two others who worked for Stars and Stripes,
is engraved in the new Arlington, Va., Freedom Forum Memorial
to journalists who died doing their job.
Twenty-eight years ago, a gutsy newspaper reporter, cut from the
same material as Pyle, argued his way into being given orders
to report to Vietnam to cover the war there for Pacific Stars
and Stripes.
Paul D. Savanuck
dropped out of college -- en route to a journalism degree -- at
the University of Maryland in his senior year in 1967 to join
the Army. Echoes of Ernie Pyle seem to lie in his decision.
A native of Baltimore -- born the year after Pyle died -- Savanuck
volunteered for duty in Vietnam. He did so as a challenge to himself.
``This was a point in my life where I could meet something head-on
instead of avoiding it,'' the 21-year-old told a colleague. Again,
an echo of Pyle's words regarding danger is clear. There's just
no way to avoid it, Savanuck might have said.
I can't know for sure, but I have a feeling that Savanuck read
just about every word that Pyle wrote. In the small record we
have of Savanuck's war days, Pyle's shadow seems to loom large.
Pushing to become a Stars and Stripes reporter, Savanuck finally
got his wish on April 4, 1969, when he was assigned to Stripes'
news bureau in Saigon.
He filed a story with accompanying photos on a Philippine unit
operating near the Cambodian border. It was the last story he
wrote.
In a letter back to his parents and on a letter accompanying his
attempt to gain admission to Harvard, Savanuck had written: ``I
have found what I want to do . . . journalism, . . .''
Volunteering
to do a story on pacification in the DMZ, Savanuck headed north.
He camped with a cavalry regiment that was attacked by North Vietnamese
troops. Wounded while taking pictures, he discarded his camera
and rushed to help more seriously wounded soldiers.
He was hit in the back by automatic weapon fire. He was 23 years
old when he died. The date was April 18, 1969.
On that day, Ernie Pyle, 1900-1945, met Paul D. Savanuck, 1946-1969,
journalist.