r/wwiipics

The famous war correspondent Ernest Taylor Pyle, better known as "Ernie Pyle" to veterans and their loved ones, lost his life during the fighting on the island of Ie Shima on 18 April 1945.

A Navy veteran of World War I, Pyle majored in journalism and entered that field after graduating from Indiana University. He wrote a regular column of mainly human-interest stories that was carried by newspapers across the country.

He became a war correspondent when the United States entered World War II, and filed many stories as he covered the campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, and western Europe. His "everyman" perspective enabled him to write poignant eyewitness accounts of soldiers in combat that quickly became popular with the troops as well as the folks back home and earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1944.

Pyle paid particular attention and tribute to average "dogface" infantrymen. In his writing he urged that they receive a "fight pay" stipend like the "flight pay" given to airmen, which resulted in "combat pay" for ground combat soldiers.

As the war against Germany concluded, Pyle wanted to see the conflict to its ultimate end and went to the Pacific Theater. He landed on Ie Shima (a dependency of Okinawa) with the Army's 77th Infantry Division in April 1945.

Americans were saddened to read the bulletin, dateline "COMMAND POST, IE SHIMA, April 18 (AP) _ Ernie Pyle, war correspondent beloved by his co-workers, GIs and generals alike, was killed by a Japanese machine-gun bullet through his left temple this morning ...”

"He was buried where he fell, with a special monument that read: " AT THIS SPOT THE 77th INFANTRY DIVISION LOST A BUDDY – ERNIE PYLE, 18 APRIL 1945."

US Soldiers with the 84th Infantry Division "Railsplitters" advance in Duisburg, Germany - April 1945

Does anyone know what unit's emblem is on the back of the truck? Army Group Center's area of operations, 1941.

Weary Marines just off the front lines after 23 days on Cape Gloucester, January 1944

German soldiers and a Volkssturm man (with an armband) near their KIA comrades in Goldap (now Gołdap, Poland). Soviet troops captured the town during the Gumbinnen-Goldap operation but retreated on October 22 1944 after German counterattacks.

The breakthrough (Aachen, Oct 1944) - Iconic scene spot revisited 82 yrs later

U.S. Army Corporal Larry Matinsk puts cigarettes into the extended hands of newly-liberated prisoners behind a stockade in the Munich-Allach Concentration Camp in Allach-Untermenzing, Germany, on April 30, 1945.

What is this cylindrical object on this British paratrooper’s kit?

M4 Mortar Carrier nicknamed “LUCIA” with HQ Company, 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 2nd Armored Division, in front of the Hexenbürgermeister House in Lemgo, Germany - April 1945

Six USS Hancock (CV-19) TBM bombers fly near Okinawa, while supporting the invasion forces, 4 April 1945.

81 years ago today- 18 April, 1945 – The death of beloved war correspondent Ernie Pyle on Okinawa

A US M4 Sherman T34 Calliope -France 1944.The T34 Calliope was a tank-mounted multiple rocket system used by the US Army during WW2.Fitted atop the M4 Sherman,it fired 4.5-inch(114 mm)M8 rockets from 60 launch tubes arranged in a distinctive clustered frame.

Wounded GI recovered by comrades (Aachen,1944) - Same spot 82 years apart

German soldiers near Dubno. On the left is a knocked-out Soviet KV-2 tank bearing German inscriptions and the date June 29, 1941.

Douglas TBD Devastator on the flight deck of USS Enterprise CV-6 with a torpedo loaded during the Doolittle Raid - April 1942

“Hell on Earth”- Lagoon at Betio after the assault on Tarawa, November 1943

VE Day on Okinawa- While Europe rejoiced at the end of the war in the west, these Marines found no respite from the bitter struggle on Okinawa. Through the mud of a narrow road, one file moves up to the front line past a column of returning men on the road to the capital city of Naha, May, 1945.

American soldiers advancing past a dead Japanese soldier near Balete Pass, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 12 Apr 1945 NSFW

Photograph taken by waist gunner Fred D Venables, 8th Air Force, 466th Bomb Group, 785th Bomb Squadron, B24 piloted by Henry N. Thorsen.

April 1945: French 5th Armored Division (5e Division Blindeé - 5e DB) in the vicinity of Tübingen, Germany

A German machine gun team in action during the Battle of Leros, 1943.