Editing Ernie Pyle (section)

====European theater====
[[File:Ernie Pyle - US Army photo at Anzio, 1944. Photo Credit - USAMHI.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Pyle at Anzio, Italy, 1944]]
Pyle volunteered to go to London in December 1940 to cover the Battle of Britain. He witnessed the [[Germany|German]] firebombing of the city and reported on the growing conflict in [[Europe]]. His recollections of his experiences from this period were published in his book, ''Ernie Pyle in England'' (1941).<ref name=BoomhowerTraces30-31/><ref name=Brockman47>Brockman, page 47.</ref> After returning to the United States in March 1941 and taking a three-month leave of absence from work to care for his wife, Pyle made a second trip to [[Great Britain]] in June 1942, when he accepted an assignment to become a [[war correspondent]] for Scripps-Howard newspapers. Pyle's wartime columns usually described the war from the common man's perspective as he rotated among the various branches of the U.S. military and reported from the front lines. Pyle joined American troops in North Africa and Europe (1942–44), and the Asiatic-Pacific Theater (1945).<ref name=Price/><ref>Boomhower, ''The Soldier's Friend'', pages 55–59 and 63.</ref> Collections of Pyle's newspaper columns from the campaigns he covered in the [[European theatre of World War II|European theater]] are included in ''Here is Your War'' (1943) and ''Brave Men'' (1944).<ref name=BoomhowerTraces30-31/><ref name=Brockman47/>

In his reports of the [[North African Campaign]] in late 1942 and early 1943,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pyle |first=Ernie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aypb4g_8uZkC |title=Here Is Your War |date=April 2005 |publisher=Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Incorporated |isbn=978-1-57912-441-0 |language=en}}</ref> Pyle told stories of his early wartime experiences, which made interesting reading for Americans in the United States.<ref>Boomhower, ''The Soldier's Friend'', page 64.</ref> Through his work, Pyle became friends of the enlisted men and officers, as well as those in leadership roles such as Generals [[Omar Bradley]] and [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]].<ref name=Price/><ref name=GS280>Gugin and St. Clair, eds., page 280.</ref> Pyle wrote that he was especially fond of the infantry "because they are the underdogs".<ref name=BoomhowerTraces30-31/>

Pyle lived among the U.S. servicemen and was free to interview anyone he wanted. As a noncombatant Pyle could also leave the front when he wanted. He interrupted his reporting in September 1943 and in September 1944 to return home to recuperate from the stresses of combat<ref>Johnson and Hays, pages 49 and 53.</ref><ref>Boomhower, ''The Soldier's Friend'', page 65.</ref> and care for his wife when she was ill.<ref>Tobin, pages 60–61, 123–24, 159–61, and 219–220.</ref>

Reinforcing his status as the [[Dogface (military)|dogface]] G.I.'s best friend, Pyle wrote a column from [[Italy]] in 1944 proposing that soldiers in combat should get "fight pay," just as airmen received "[[United States military pay#Special Pay|flight pay]]". In May 1944 the [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]] passed a law that became known as the Ernie Pyle bill. It authorized 50 percent extra pay for combat service.<ref name=BoomhowerTraces30-31/> Pyle's most famous column, "The Death of [[Henry T. Waskow|Captain Waskow]]," written in Italy in December 1943, was published on January 10, 1944, when Allied forces were fighting at the [[Anzio]] beachhead in Italy.<ref name=GS280/> The notable story also marked the peak of Pyle's writing career.<ref>Boomhower, ''The Soldier's Friend'', page 78.</ref>

After the [[North African Campaign|North African]] and [[Italian Campaign (World War II)|Italian campaigns]], Pyle left Italy in April 1944, relocating to England to cover preparations for the Allied landing at [[Invasion of Normandy|Normandy]]. Pyle was among the twenty-eight war correspondents chosen to accompany U.S. troops during the initial invasion in June 1944. He landed with American troops at [[Omaha Beach]] aboard a [[Landing Ship, Tank|LST]].<ref>Boomhower, ''The Soldier's Friend'', pages 81–83.</ref> On [[D-Day]] Pyle wrote:
<blockquote>The best way I can describe this vast armada and the frantic urgency of the traffic is to suggest that you visualize New York city on its busiest day of the year and then just enlarge that scene until it takes in all the ocean the human eye can reach clear around the horizon and over the horizon. There are dozens of times that many.<ref>On preparations to invade at Normandy, see: {{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/thewar/|title=THE WAR |publisher=PBS}}</ref></blockquote>

In July 1944, Pyle was nearly caught in the accidental bombing by the [[United States Army Air Forces|U.S. Army Air Forces]] at the onset of [[Operation Cobra]] near [[Saint-Lô]] in Normandy.<ref>Tobin, pages 195–96.</ref> A month after witnessing the [[liberation of Paris]] in August 1944,<ref>{{cite book |author=Nicholas Rankin|title=Ian Fleming's Commandos: The Story of 30 Assault Unit in WWII | publisher =Faber 
|year=2011 | location =London | isbn = 9780571250639}}</ref> Pyle publicly apologized to his readers in a column on September 5, 1944, stating that "my spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused" and he said that if he "heard one more shot or saw one more dead man, I would go off my nut".<ref name=lifepyle>{{cite magazine|date=2 April 1945 |author=Lincoln Barnett|title=Ernie Pyle | magazine=Life | page=106|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1EkEAAAAMBAJ&q=nauseated}}</ref> He later said he had "lost track of the point of the war" and that another two weeks of coverage would have seen him hospitalized with "[[Posttraumatic stress disorder|war neurosis]]".<ref name=lifepyle/> An exhausted Pyle wrote that he hoped that a rest at his home in [[New Mexico]] would restore his vigor to go "warhorsing around the Pacific".<ref>Tobin, pages 201.</ref>