
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 5, 1995                   TAG: 9505050037
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-15   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: HARRY M. BOWLES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ERNIE PYLE

MY GRANDDAUGHTER called me a few months ago and said she had an assignment in school about World War II. She asked, ``Do you remember anything about it?''

I said, ``Honey, I don't remember what I did last month, but 50 years ago - I'll never forget that period.''

One day, in particular, is still very clear to me, even now, 50 years later. As we sat off the beach of Ie Shima, a small island near Okinawa, awaiting our turn to ``go in,'' I recall watching our artillery on another small island behind us, and a nearby U.S. cruiser (the U.S.S. Vicksburg) fire salvo after salvo onto the island.

From the safety of our ship (an LST), we could see the shells exploding in front of our advancing infantry (units of the Veteran 77 Statue of Liberty division).

Everyone on the island, and those of us going in, had no choice but to be there - except one man.

As soon as we went in that morning, April 18, 1945, word spread rapidly that Ernie Pyle, the noted war correspondent, had just been killed by a Japanese sniper.

He had seen and reported the war from North Africa, Italy and France - and had been wounded at Anzio. His column appeared in some 400 newspapers back home and now, how ironic that he should meet his death on minuscule Ie Shima, an island so small that most maps cannot even show it.

Being a civilian, therefore a noncombatant, Pyle could have gone home any time he wanted to. He admitted to being miserable and scared when he was in the war zone. But ``when I'm back home, I feel like a deserter.'' He repeatedly said he knew he would be killed if he hit another beachhead. And so it happened to him in the last battle of World War II.

He was buried with the men he loved, and a wood marker was erected at the site of his death, on which was inscribed: ``At This Spot the 77th Infantry Division Lost a Buddy - Ernie Pyle, 18th April 1945.'' (Footnote: A concrete monument was later erected in place of the wood marker, and his body was moved years later and reburied at the National Memorial Cemetery in Hawaii.)

Harry M. Bowles, of Roanoke, is a retired civil engineer.

by CNB