The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II

In this intriguing and admiring biography, Chrisinger (Stories Are What Save Us), director of writing seminars for The War Horse, retraces war correspondent Ernie Pyle’s steps through the European and Pacific theaters of WWII. Born and raised in Indiana, Pyle innovated a new style of war reporting by focusing less on geopolitics and strategy and more on “what he called the soldiers’ ‘worm’s eye view.’ ” From digging his own foxhole on the front lines in North Africa, to eye-witnessing the Normandy landings and the invasion of Okinawa, Pyle’s reports humanized U.S. soldiers for readers at home, while simultaneously exposing the muddy, violent, and often useless nature of war. According to Chrisinger, Pyle managed to both “maintain morale and stir up the American public to do all they could to help finish the fighting so that their boys could finally come home.” By the time he was killed by a sniper on Okinawa in 1945, Pyle had achieved critical and financial success, though his long absences from home exacerbated his wife’s “bipolar disorder” and Pyle himself worried that he would “crack wide open and become a real case of war neurosis.” Chrisinger’s deep admiration for his subject comes through, as does his belief in the power of storytelling as a force for good. It’s a fascinating portrait of a reporter who gave everything to get the story. (May)