 Yes, he had used up his chances. On the island of EA before a burst of Jap machine gun fire, Ernie Pyle, America's best-loved war correspondent, died as so many American boys he'd written about. Ernie Pyle was killed in action. The national broadcasting company in cooperation with the Council on Books and Wartime presents Words at War, dramatizing the most representative books to come out of this great world conflict. Our original schedule called for the presentation of another book, but the death of Ernie Pyle in the Pacific made his brave men the timeliest program we could bring you tonight. And so we bring you the stories Ernie Pyle wrote about the American fighting men, the songs they sang together and loved so well. Here is a tribute to the little guy who held the love and affection of every American soldier he ever met, his Ernie Pyle's last book, entitled with his simple eloquence, Brave Men. What is it like before a battle? What do they think about? Well, they're afraid, but not afraid of the physical part of dying. That isn't the way it is. The emotion is rather one of almost desperate reluctance to give up the future, to give up such things as seeing the old lady again, of going on to college, of getting married, of holding on your knee just once the kid you've never seen, of becoming the champion salesman in your territory, of driving a coal truck around Kansas City once more. Yes, even of sitting in the sun again on the south side of a house in New Mexico. It's these little hopes and ambitions for some bright tomorrow that makes up the sum total of the worry and anxiety in the hearts of the waiting men. I think you can ever fully understand the ties that grow between men who live savagely together, relentlessly communing with death. They're ties of great strength. There's a sense of fidelity to each other in a little core of men who've endured so long and whose hope in the end can be so small. Lieutenant... Yes, Sergeant? Well, I'm supposed to go back to rest camp tonight. I know, Buck. But we're due to attack tonight. Yeah. Well, Lieutenant, well, I don't think I'd better go. I'll stay if you need me. Of course I need you, Buck. I always need you. But it's your turn and I want you to go. Well, I'd just as soon stay, sir. I know, but you're going. That's an order, Buck. Yes, sir. Some cowboy had a long... This was in Italy. Sergeant Buck, a cowboy from Idaho, came back to the little group of old-timers with whom I was standing. He thought he was leaving forever. I guess I'll be going. Good luck to you all. Thanks, Buck. Get yourself a good rest. Yeah, I don't want to be gone five days. Sure. You'll be back before you know it. Yeah, well... So long, everybody. So long, kid. And... And... Well... Good luck. Good luck to you all. Thanks, Buck. Thanks, Buck. Take me back, take me back. The vallies were swabbed in a dismal mist. The artillery of both sides flashed and rumbled around the horizon. The encroaching darkness was heavy and foreboding. I walked with Buck to the waiting truck. He kept his eyes on the ground. And I think he might have cried if he'd known how. Yeah, Buck, this will be the first battle I ever missed with this battalion. Yeah. I sure do wish him luck. Well, they know that. I feel like a deserter. I can lay down on the ground with my other friends waiting for the night orders to march. I lay there in the darkness thinking terribly touched by the great simple devotion of that soldier who was a cowboy. Thinking of the millions of people far away at home who would remain forever unaware of this feeling of the soldier for his comrades. And you know what's the first thing I'm going to do when I get home? What? I'm going to fix it so my kid won't have to fight in the next war. How are you going to do that? Well, I'll tell you. First of all, I'm going to take him up on a garage roof and put 10-pound weights in his hands and make him jump off. That ought to break down the arches. Then I think I'll feed him a little ground glass every now and then to give him a bad stomach. That ought to make him 4F all right. Yeah, and I'll make him read by candlelight to ruin his eyes. When I get through with him, he'll be double 4F. Joe, if I didn't know you so well, I'd say you don't like it over here. Oh, you know me better than that. I just love this nice mud in that German artillery. Listen, if I ever get home, you'll have to catch me to bring me back again. Go on, you'd be home a couple of weeks and read about us over here. Remember these bull sessions? You'd bust out ball and you'd be so homesick. Yeah, well, just give me the chance, that's all. Just give me the chance. Oh, the guns, guns and the pretty, pretty huns, what a war, what a war. Oh, the guns, guns and the pretty, pretty huns, what a love. But they tell me that a lot of American soldiers who return to America do get homesick for the front. They get an itch for the old miserable life, a disgusting, illogical yearning to be back again in a place they hated. I'm sure it's true, but I know a lot of soldiers who would like a chance to put the theory to the test. Behind me is a distinguished and unbroken record for being sick in every country I ever visited. I'd been in Sicily five days when I decided to get sick and get it over with. Well, they established me in a clearing station and finally decided I had battlefield fever. You don't die of that. You just think you will. As I began to feel better, I became aware of the wounded and the dying men who were constantly being brought into the tent. I feel okay. I think I'm going to make it, Doc. Of course you will. Are we all right? Let me go. I can walk all right. Here you go. The bed's here. Well, now I want to go to bed. There's nothing wrong with me, Doc. You don't call this little scratch anything. Let me out of here. We've got to take care of that wound, son. We're going to send you back to the hospital. I don't want to go to any hospital. I want to get back to my outfit. You wouldn't do your route for any good right now, son. You go on to the hospital. I've got some good-looking nurses there. I don't care about any nurses. I want to get back to where I belong. Now, take it easy, soldier. Take it easy. It was flabbergasting to me to lie there and hear wounded men cuss and beg to be sent right back into the fight. Of course, not all of them did that. It depended on the severity of their wounds and their individual personalities, just as a wooden peacetime. But the main impression I got from all the wounded was their wonderful spirit and the thoughtful and attentive attitude of the men who cared for them. Well, eventually, after having indulged myself long enough to keep up my sick record, I got back to the front. Front-line conversation covers almost every topic in the world. You know something. For 25 bucks, I'll eat a double-edged razor blade. Now, what you think of that? I wouldn't give you too much. Now, you can't do it anyway. Yeah, you just put up 25 bucks and I'll show you and I'll let you examine the inside of my mouth afterwards. How do you do it? I just chew them up. I haven't got 25 bucks. Well, you could all pitch in. Look, I'll take a double-edged razor blade, chew all up and swallow her down. Now, what you say? Nah. Can you really do it, Sam? Sure I can, Ernie. I used to do it all the time before the war. I was offered a job in a carnival. Well, is that so? Ernie, how about you putting up 25 bucks? No, Sam. I think I'll wait and see it for two bits at the carnival. Oh, it's worth 25 bucks to see a guy eat a double-edged blade. Hey, I wonder if we'll ever get those galoshes they promised us. They've been promising us galoshes for a month. What do you all with galoshes? To keep my feet dry? My feet haven't been dry for six weeks. Take a drink of that lousy cognac they sell in Naples. That'll dry your socks for at his bottom. No kidding, though. I'd sure like some galoshes. Oh, forget the galoshes, will you? That's all you talk about, galosh. Well, what's the matter? You got to talk about something. Anyway, it's not civilized to go around with your feet wet for six weeks. What do you mean civilized? What's that? Back home, we thought we were civilized because we took a lot of baths. I haven't had a bath in two months, and I don't feel any different. Maybe people take too many baths anyway. Maybe they do. I dreamed about baths. But when I got home, I'm almost ashamed to admit this. I didn't average more than one bath a week all the time I was there. Maybe what we're fighting for is the right to be as dirty as we please. So it's me. It always rains in the infantry, but we never take a bath. I found a hunk of soap one day, but the dirt began to laugh. I took a walk along the historic coast of Normandy after D-Day. It was a lovely day for strolling along the seashore. Men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever. Men were floating in the water, but they didn't know they were in the water, for they were dead. You know, on that beach lay expended sufficient men and mechanism for a small war. And they were gone forever now. And yet we could afford it. We could afford it because we had our toe hold. Now we lock with the tanks and the mortars, some soldiers and a law. There were soldiers, packs, socks and shoe polish. Sewing kits, bibles, letters from home. Snapshots of wives and sweethearts staring up at you from the sand. Always there are dogs in every invasion. There was a dog on the beach now, still looking pitifully for his masters. He barked at feeling that every soldier who approached suddenly wronged. He went with them for a few feet and then, sensing himself unwatered, he'd run back to waiting vain for his own people with his own empty boat. Where the sand is our tombstone. Where the water is our graveyard. Where our bodies are like driftwood. The long ways from home. The strong swirling tides of the Normandy coastline shifted the contours of the sandy beach as they moved in and out. They carried soldiers' bodies out to sea. And later they returned them. They covered the heroes with sand. And then in their whims they uncovered them. They walked around what seemed to be a couple of pieces of driftwood sticking out of the sand. But they weren't driftwood. They were soldiers two feet. The toes of his GI shoes pointed toward the land he'd come so far to see. In which he saw so briefly. Why don't you tell them, Pyle? Why don't you tell them back home what it's really like? All they hear about is a lot of victories and glory stuff. They don't know that every time we advance somebody gets killed. Why don't you tell them? I told him that was what I tried to do all the time. See this soldier was fed up. His outfit had suffered heavy casualties. He was exhausted. He was filled with bitterness. Yet a few days rest and take it all out of him. He didn't want any credit or glory for himself. He just wanted to be sure the folks at home realized that men were dying. Some folks at home keep thinking of steak while the bullets they give us a belly. Oh, my gosh, a mine. Where? I don't see it. It's not a mine. Look, it's a little baby rabbit. A rabbit? Hey, don't ever do that again. I thought it was stepping on a mine. I'll say he's a cute little fella. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's cute. But look, Bill, don't ever do that again. See? Yeah. Hey, this little fella's hungry. I'm going to take him back and get him some canned meals. You'd better leave it here. You can't be talking a rabbit around with you. Yeah. Yeah, he's a cute little fella. Stranged little things happened on the battlefield. Private Bill Westcott found a little rabbit. He fed it tenderly through an eyedropper. There was quite a little rabbit at that. It hopped around everywhere after Westcott and when the distance got too far, it would go hoppin' back to the pup tent and snuggle up in Westcott's blanket. All the boys were crazy about it. Then, after about a week, we found the little rabbit dead on the grass. Private Westcott, whose own life was in the balance every day, felt awful bad about that little rabbit. It was raining heavily. We were all soaked through. We were on our way to clean out an enemy's storm point. The young lieutenant kept barking his orders. Spread it out now. The men didn't talk among themselves. They just went. They weren't heroic figures as they moved forward a few seconds apart. There was a confused excitement and a grim anxiety in their faces. Spread it out. Come on. Spread it out. They seemed terribly pathetic to me. They weren't warriors. They were American boys who by mere chance of fate had wound up with guns in their hands sneaking up a death-laden street in a strange and shattered city in a faraway country in the driving rain. They were afraid, but it was beyond their power to quit. They had no choice. Hey, Ernie, raise your rifle. The correspondents can't carry rifles. In the national law. Sounds like a silly law if you ask me. Hey, I used to read your column back in Cincinnati, Ernie. You did? We're pals, then. Ernie, could you put my name in? I mean, the family would get a big kick out of it. Sure. Let me get the name right. Here, you hold my helmet over the pass. Sure. Thanks. Go ahead. Private First Class. Wait. Cincinnati, Ohio. Yeah. Even with the bullets winding down the street, the soldiers were eager for me to get their names so that the folks back home would know they were in this. I ducked from one doorway to another and named many names they could. Names of the actors in one little drama of the war along the rain-soaked street of the French village. Not much glory in the job they were doing. For as my favorite song in theirs puts it, they've got no time for glory in the infantry. They've got no use for praises loudly sung. Oh, they've got no time for glory in me. Oh, they've got no use for praises loudly sung. But in every soldier's heart in all the infantry shines the name, shines the name of Roger Young. Caught in ambush lay a company of riflemen. Just grenades against machine guns in the glue. Ambushed till this one of twenty riflemen. Volunteered, volunteered to meet his doom. Stood the man like the everlasting courage of the infantry. Was the courage of private on the island of New Georgia in the Solomon's. Stands a simple wooden cross alone to tell. Eat the silent coral of the salt. Sleeps a man, sleeps a man, remember. Oh, they've got no time for glory in the infantry. They'll settle for a mention in a guy's newspaper column just so the folks at home will know. Now a final story. I've told you of the feeling soldiers who faced death together have for one another. A feeling those who stayed at home will never be able to comprehend. Well, this takes me back to Italy and to Captain Henry T. Wasco of Belton, Texas. I have never crossed the trail of any officer so beloved by the men under him. After my father, he came next. He always looked out for us, always went to bat for us. I never knew him to do anything unfair. I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Captain Wasco down. The moon was nearly full and you could see far up the mountain trail. Dead men had been coming down the trail all evening, lashed on the back of mules. They came lying belly down across the pack saddles. The heads hanging down on one side and they stiffened legs, sticking out awkwardly from the other. I don't know who the first one was. He feels small in the presence of dead men. You don't ask silly questions. This one's Captain Wasco. The unburdened mules moved off to their olive grove. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around. I could sense them moving one by one close to Captain Wasco's body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear. Damn it, sir. That's all he said. Damn it, sir, you walked away and another man came. I think he was an officer. He looked into the dead Captain's face and then he spoke to him as though he were alive. Sorry, old man. Then the soldier came and he stood beside the officer and bent over and he said very tenderly, I sure am sorry, sir. The first man squatted down and took the Captain's hand. He sat there a full five minutes looking into the dead Captain's face. Finally he put the hand down. He reached over and gently straightened the points of the Captain's car and then he sort of re-arranged the tattered edges of the uniform around the wound and then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight. I'm just a fool in this world of hope. Such is the powerful fraternity in this ghastly brotherhood. Something that only our fighting men will fully understand. How thousands of these men will be returning home before long, they'll be changed. They'll have to learn how to adjust themselves to peace and all of us will have to learn how to reassemble our broken world into a pattern so firm and so fair that another great war cannot soon be possible. Tell the simple truth most of us over in France don't pretend to know the right answer. All we can do is fumble and try once more. Try out of the memory of our anguish and be as tolerant of each other as we can. He didn't want to go. He hated it. War sickened him and made him afraid. When he came back from Europe he said that if he saw one more dead man he feared he would lose his mind. He said this would be his last invasion. He probably meant it. But if he had lived it wouldn't have been his last invasion because although Ernie Pyle freely confessed his fears and his horror of killing he would go along with the American boys who had no choice but to go where they were ordered. Yes, he wrote his wife and this would be his last invasion. After this he would write stories from headquarters. But no GI believes he would have done that. Ernie Pyle would have gone on as long as there was one American boy who had no choice but to go on. The GIs who loved him went out in the face of enemy fire to bring back the body of Ernie Pyle from the spot where he had fallen. And the GI fashioned a wooden coffin for Ernie and laid him beside his fellow fighting men. No need to write an epitaph for Ernie Pyle it has been written by a GI on a crude wooden marker that stands over his grave on the desolate aisle of EA near Okinawa. It reads simply at this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy Ernie Pyle April 18, 1945 Oh Georgia in the Solomon's stands a simple and cross alone to tell that beneath the silent coral of the Solomon's sleeps a man sleeps a man remembered In tribute to the memory of America's best-loved war correspondent Ernie Pyle Words at War has presented a dramatization of his last book Brave Men. The radio adaptation of Brave Men by Ernie Pyle was by Gerald Holland Carl Swenson was heard as Ernie Pyle others in the cast were Martin Wolfson as narrator Jim Bowles Walter Kinsella Paul Mann, Larry Haynes Jeffrey Bryant and Carl Emory Our ballad singer was Tom Glazer Organ Music was by William Meadier Words at War is presented by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the Council on Books and War Time Next week at this same time a dramatization of another important war book This is the National Broadcasting