Indiana University School of Journalism

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Owen V. Johnson

A watch given to Ernie Pyle by Amelia Earhart circulated the room. The thick brown band, intact after several decades, draped from hand to hand in passing, as delicate as the sands in Normandy, as students in IU School of Journalism associate professor Owen V. Johnson’s Continuing Studies course examined it.

Over three Thursdays starting in late April, Johnson taught a course to students enrolled in a course dedicated to the life of IU alumnus Ernie Pyle, an American journalist most famous for his World War II reporting. The setting, Meadowood Retirement Community, drew about a dozen residents and other adults, some of whom remembered Pyle’s work.

At each of the three classes, Johnson spoke to students about each of the stages in Ernie Pyle’s life, beginning with his time growing up in Indiana to when he left IU and worked as an aviation reporter and managing editor. The last session ended with the focus of Pyle’s life as a war reporter.

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Correspondent Ernie Pyle, seated in the center, was known for telling about the war from the soldiers’ point of view. Here, he joins men for a meal before an Allied invasion near Anzio, Italy.

Last fall, Jeanne Madison, director of the Lifelong Learning Program at IU Continuing Studies, asked Johnson if he would be willing to do a course about Pyle. For nearly nine years, Johnson has been researching and talking about Pyle. He’s examined Pyle’s columns, letters and work about Pyle in order to gain a better sense of Pyle and his life.

“How did Pyle become the person he became?” Johnson asked as he explained his research.

During one of his class sessions, Johnson showed a slideshow about Pyle. He read aloud Pyle’s columns and letters, sharing the journalist’s style of writing and voice. The dozen students – adults who grew up during the World War II era – listened to Johnson relive the journalist’s correspondence days.

But there are some things that are unknown about Pyle, which Johnson highlighted during his lecture. Pyle left IU one semester short of graduation and critics still speculate as to why. Some, Johnson said, say Pyle left because of a broken heart. But letters written by Pyle suggest that this is not the case.

In one of his letters, Pyle wrote that he planned to return to IU to finish because he was afraid that if he waited any longer he wouldn’t go back. He also wrote that he was afraid he was about to lose his girl – so, Johnson said, the story that he left IU because of a girl is not entirely true.

After leaving IU a semester shy of graduation, Pyle worked as a reporter at the (LaPorte, Ind.) Herald.

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Ernie Pyle made time to visit the Daily Student offices when in Bloomington. Here, he looks over the day’s edition with Pat (Krieghbaum) Madawick, who graduated in 1945.

“I am in love with my work,” Pyle wrote in one of his letters that Johnson read aloud.

Pyle eventually moved to Washington to be a reporter, but the question of whether or not to return to school was a huge issue for Pyle, who wanted to stay and cover Congress, but whose parents also told him that if he went back to school, they would pay for his last semester.

“He never did go back to school,” Johnson said.

Instead, Pyle took a leave from Washington for two months. He missed Geraldine, a girl with whom he had fallen in love, and the two decided to get married in 1925. He wrote of a plan to go to Paris. He wrote of many plans and travels – most of which didn’t occur.

“His whole life would have been different if he followed through with all of these plans,” Johnson said. Pyle died in 1945 while in combat and reporting on the scene during World War II.

Pyle’s story has been a part of IU alumna Marjorie Blewett’s life since she was an IU undergraduate. Blewett recalls a time in 1944, when she was a freshman, when classes were let out to see Pyle get his honorary degree.

Then, the next April, in 1945, he was killed, Blewett remembers.

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The soldiers on Ie Shima quickly erected this sign at the spot where Pyle fell.

Blewett, who served as the editor-in-chief of the IDS in 1948, returned to IU in 1965 to work as the journalism placement director. She became the de facto “Pyle curator,” as she describes, because she had oversight of many of his belongings, including his tuxedo that hung in her closet. Blewett said she often took Pyle’s jacket out and had a student with a slender frame wear it to illustrate Pyle’s slight build.

Even with her knowledge, she said she appreciated Johnson’s class because she learned many new facts. During the first class session, Johnson shared an editorial from the IDS speculated to have been written by Pyle. Blewett said she never knew about that.

Johnson also has led the School of Journalism course, J460 From London to Paris: In the Footsteps of Ernie Pyle, since its inception in 2008. During spring break, students examine Pyle’s work during World War II in Europe, a follow up to class sessions studying his life and columns.

Johnson is no stranger to speaking to the community. He’s spoken to the Lion’s Club and several other organizations about Pyle. And now, he said, he is currently working on a book.

As Johnson said, quoting Amelia Earhart during Pyle’s aviation reporting days, “You’re not anybody if you don’t know Ernie Pyle.”

More:

• Read about Pyle’s work and ties to IU.
• Learn about the course that follows Ernie Pyle’s path through England and France.
• Read student trip reports from the most recent class’ spring break travels.

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