Here Is Your War
Ernie Pyle
Illustrated by Carol Johnson, Here Is Your War covers Pyle’s experiences as a war correspondent in Africa. It is not a collection of his columns, but inasmuch as he wrote it in the middle of the war his purpose was similar; I assume that the style is more informal, personal and selfreferential, and reflective— I’m sure it must at least deal with topics at longer stretches than column length.
I wanted to read it to learn how to write for newspapers; I am ending up, as always, drawing facts and (Pyle’s) interesting opinions from it.
Here Is Your War:
American forces welcome in North Africa, and American generosity.
Oran.
Flood of war materials into Africa.
Wishful thinking about when the war will end; waiting; communication with home; two baths in a week.
Treatment of Axis sympathizers and other Allied relationships with the people of North Africa. Includes a paragraph on German propaganda.
Medical care on the front; also, saving sugar.
The air forces, bravery, and going home.
Fighter pilots don’t get the credit they deserve.
Arab help in the retreat after the German surprise breakthrough.
Digging trenches for the joy of it.
Opinion letter from a stateside soldier.
On trying to buy a long-bladed knife from a nomadic Arab shepherd: “He didn’t speak French, which left us no common ground, particularly since I don’t speak it either.” (Page 199.)
Roving reporters; life on the front.
Sidi bou Zid, destroyed.
Air superiority, at last.
Beginning the final push in the northern mountains of Tunisia.
Infantry in the push.
Constant shelling, narrow escapes, and a few words on living on the ground.
Medics at the front.
Victory, the day of.
Towns and people of Northern Tunisia.
Pilots view their destruction.
Private Wolfson, Sergeant Harrington, and Major Robb had one thing in common with every soldier in the army—they thought their division was the best extant. Since I was a man without a division, I just agreed with them all. (Page 287.)
Machines evaluated: the jeep, the DC-3, and the GMC 2 1/2 ton truck.
Producing at home, hardening overseas.
Troops’ international perspective.
Food and other supplies top grade, except for fighting equipment.
Pioneering days and last days.
Contemplation, during lull, on peaceful days, turtles and snakes, war, and death.
Ernie Pyle, Here Is Your War (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1943).
Notes from the transcriber:
Periods should have two spaces after them, and I put in that extra space if it is not present, which it was not in this book. That is my sole editorial change, apart of course from presenting chopped pieces of the content. My apologies to Mr. Pyle if he disagrees with it.
The last entries of this book were scanned in, which would begin to give me moral qualms, except that Pyle died in 1945, he has no descendants that I know of, and as far as I know the book is – shamefully – out of print. Heh, now I think I should go back and scan the whole thing in! But that’s another project, and I have enough projects.
Comments, transcription, and scanning by Benjamin Melançon · 2001