When the History Detectives came to the School of Journalism, they didn't have to look far for a bit of history. Ernie Pyle Hall, named for the famous WWII correspondent and IU alumnus, is a place filled with history, from the memories that linger in its halls and offices to the more tangible kind.

A film crew from the History Detectives, a primetime PBS series, was on location at IU Tuesday to film segments of a show about a typewriter Pyle may have used during WWII. A man in Oregon has a Corona 3 typewriter he thinks was Pyle's.

The School of Journalism has been in possession of another of Pyle's typewriters, an Underwood Noiseless Portable, since 1946. The History Detectives are investigating the authenticity of the Oregon typewriter by traveling the country and collecting evidence on Pyle and the typewriters he used throughout his life.

"The whole point of the show is the process, to show people what the process is, and to tell segments of history that haven't been told before," said Beth Harrington, the show's producer and director.

There's perhaps no one better to tell that story than School of Journalism professor and Ernie Pyle expert Owen Johnson. The History Detectives interviewed Johnson about the life and work of Pyle. Ernie Pyle Lounge, which houses the School of Journalism's collection of Ernie Pyle possessions, including the Underwood Portable, was turned into a mini-TV studio, with mics, lights and cables snaking across the floor.

Johnson stood with Wes Cowan, a History Detective host, in front of a table to take a look at the Oregon typewriter, a small, well-preserved machine with a retractable carriage.

"It's certainly something a war correspondent could have used," said Johnson, in a practiced but relaxed television voice. "But you know, I think we've got the real thing here. Let me show you."

He placed the Underwood Portable on the table and told the story of how the typewriter came to be housed at the School of Journalism. Believed to be the one Pyle used for the last few years of the war, the typewriter was shipped to Pyle's friend Lee Miller after Pyle was killed by enemy fire in the Pacific. Miller donated the machine to Scripps Howard News Service, which in turn sent it to IU, where Pyle had attended university for a time.

Cameras rolling, Johnson loaded the Underwood Portable with a clean sheet of paper. As Cowan read from one of Pyle's letters, Johnson clicked away on the heavy keys, two-fingered, just like Pyle would've done. The paper would be forensic evidence for the History Detectives, a way to compare typefaces and trace the origins of letters and columns Pyle wrote.

After a couple more takes, Harrington was sure she had what she needed, so the crew took a break. "He's obviously so knowledgeable and so relaxed," the director said of Johnson. "He's a real find."

Johnson seemed to be glowing a bit from the whole experience, but said he hadn't had time to process the experience of typing on the same keys that Ernie Pyle once did.

"At that particular moment I was concentrating on the fact that I was involved in the television program," Johnson said. "But given the fact that I have this huge pile of letters he's written, and reading the columns, then it will become more meaningful."

Pyle's columns stand today, Johnson said, as examples of some of the finest war reporting ever.

"Every war that comes along," said Johnson, "everybody asks, 'Who's going to be the Ernie Pyle?' Nobody has been able to acquire that kind of distinction."

"Pyle was wonderful in his ability to conjure up a scene, to make people see what he was writing about," he said.

It was Pyle's fame, and his relevance today, that prompted the History Detectives to pursue an investigation of the Oregon typewriter, according to producer/director Beth Harrington.

"We just thought there was so much great content about Pyle, especially for people today," she said. "Especially because of what's going on with the world, embedded journalists, and everything that going on with journalists trying to get access."

While there are lingering doubts about the origins of the Oregon typewriter, and the History Detectives' verdict won't be known until the show airs next summer, the school's Underwood Noiseless Portable is legit. The School has documentation tracing its history, said Johnson, including an article in the Indiana Daily Student from 1946.

Marjorie Blewett (B.A. '48), who wrote that article for the IDS, still remembers the day she first set eyes on the typewriter. She had gone to the office of Lawrence Wheeler, then head of the IU Foundation, to dig for stories.

"He said, 'I've got something to show you,'" Blewett recalled. "He took it out of the box and I knew what it was. It was Ernie Pyle's typewriter."


Learn more about Ernie Pyle:
Read Ernie Pyle's own work in this archive of columns and letters.

Read "Remembering Pyle's IU Ties" by Owen V. Johnson.

Read an essay by Michael Skube of the Los Angeles Times about Pyle, "The Model Embed."