History, Ernie Pyle graves in batch of war photos in my father's collection

My father was alive for the first 11 years that I lived in Indiana, but in that time period, he never once mentioned that he knew that journalist and renowned World War II war correspondent Ernie Pyle was from Indiana. I have to believe he didn't know about Pyle's Indiana roots. 

On the other hand, it never occurred to me -- not during those 11 years or in the many years since -- that Dad might have indirectly crossed paths with Pyle during the Pacific Theater portion of World War II. Dad was stationed in the Pacific Theater with the Army Communications Corps in the war’s latter stages. 

This week, I sifted through a batch of photos in my Dad's collection -- photos taken on a Japanese island just a couple weeks before Japan's official surrender on Sept. 2, 1945. The photos had only recently been sent to me by my niece, Nicole. I'd never seen any of these pictures before. After my father's death in 1989, and before I arrived in Wisconsin for his funeral, my sister, Kathy, Nicole's mother, had collected these images (among other personal items of my parents) and taken them to her home without telling me or my brother. 

Kathy died nine years ago, and this summer -- some 32 years after my father's death -- Nicole graciously collected all of Kathy's family sentimental things that Nicole thought I would appreciate and shipped them to me. She needed four packages to do so! The first few contained home-movie reels, and I sent about half of those to a retail company that digitizes film, videotape, still prints and film slide images. 

Seeing the pictures on Iejima Island in the Ryukyu Retto chain of Japan gave me chills. Was my Dad there? I don't remember him telling me he was. And did he take these photos? I don't remember him telling me he took any pictures while in the service. More than likely, he did not take the pictures; the Army and Army Air Corps had communications staff, and they more than likely took the pictures. But that doesn't mean Dad wasn't there on the island when the images were taken. But was he? So many questions I want to ask Dad, but I know I’ll never know the answers.

Separate photos posted here show Ernie Pyle's first and second resting places on the island. The first is marked by a simple wooden cross (pictured at right) and appears to me to be one of several similar markers in an area that looks to be a cemetery of war casualties. The second resting place for Pyle on the island was at a site that includes the monument shown in the photo leading off this post. It was erected in September 1945, five months after his death. The monument bears the words: "At this spot, the 77th Division Infantry lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle. 18 April 1945." I opened these photos in Photoshop Elements to restore some lost exposure and shadow detail. I also used the software's healing tool to remove as many dust spots and other imperfections as I could. In fact, I did this with all of Dad's pictures taken on Iejima that I went through this week. 

At some point, Pyle's remains were moved to a third and permanent resting place, in National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Although Pyle was not interred in his home state of Indiana, there is a modest museum dedicated to him  at 120 W. Briarwood Ave., Dana, which is in Vermillion County, Ind., where he was born. There also is a Pyle museum and library in Albuquerque, N.M., where after leaving Indiana Pyle and his wife eventually settled.  

Pyle was born on Aug. 3, 1900, and he attended Indiana University, where he would join the Daily Student and become its editor before leaving school a semester before graduation. He worked briefly at the Daily Herald in LaPorte, Ind., before leaving Indiana for Washington, D.C., where he got a job with the Daily News. Years later, he covered WWII, beginning in the North Africa and Italy campaigns before switching to the Pacific Theater in January 1945. I learned about Pyle early on in my years in Indiana; Hoosier journalists revere him. For the longest time, Ernie Pyle Hall at Indiana University housed the IU journalism program in Bloomington, Ind. It has since been repurposed as a welcome center for admissions and the Walter Center for Career Achievement.

Dad's pictures included several shots of U.S. and Japanese bombers, images that were taken in mid-August 1945, barely more than a week after the U.S. had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On Aug. 19, 1945, Japanese envoys made Iejima their first stop on their way to Manila, Philippines, where they would meet with U.S. Commanding Gen. Douglas MacArthur for discussion of surrender terms. 

My father, Joe Sr., scribbled dates and some identifications (or commentary) on most of the pictures. But among all the pictures Nicole sent me, this batch of war pictures was the exception where that information was included. Most of non-war photos (i.e., the ones of family members) contain no information, and those include scores of people who I am sure are ancestors on my mother's side of the family. But I digress ... 

The rest of the war-related photos might not be sexy or dramatic, and a few of them are of questionable quality (blurry), but I still think they are of historical import, regardless of who took them. So I will present some of them below. 

Above and first three below: Based on the comments Dad wrote on the back sides almost of all the photos of the Betty Bombers (that's the term American servicemen called the Japanese G4M Mitsubishi bombers), the U.S. soldiers were quite thrilled to see these planes up close when they arrived. Dad used the word "beautiful" to describe several of the photos of the Bettys. The Japanese envoys arrived on Iejima in these bombers. In the second photo below, Dad said, the envoys are huddling underneath the wings of a couple of the parked Bettys.  All of the photos of the Bettys are dated Aug. 19, 1945. 

Above and next two below appear to be some longer range shots of the Baker Strip aircraft takeoff and landing area on Iejima on or around the time the Japanese envoys arrived to await transfer to Okinawa and, later, to Manila. Dad dated each photo as being Aug. 19, 1945. While he didn't say anything else about the two photos below, for the photo above, he did explain that what we're seeing in the background are American C-54s, which he said would transport the Japanese envoys to Manila.  

Above and next two below: Dad wrote that these landscapes of Iejima were taken from what he referred to as "Suicide Hill." Iejima does have a rather tall hill in the middle of the island, but I could not find any reference online that used the phrase "Suicide Hill" to describe it. The term I see used repeatedly is "The Pinnacle," so I have to believe they are one and the same. Dad says the photo above shows the "342D Station Complement Sq Area" (I presume "Sq" is shorthand for Squad). Unfortunately, I don't know what that identifier means exactly. He also says that, in the first picture below, the land seen in the far distant background -- across a narrow area of seawater -- is Okinawa. Dad has each of these photos dated generically as "August 1945." 

Above and first two below: Until seeing Dad's pictures, I had been oblivious to the fact that apparently some U.S. fighter pilots were allowed to have artwork painted on their plane's noses as shown in these pictures, and apparently many pilots chose to have some risque pictures for their artwork. But in doing some research, I can confirm that Dad's comment on the artwork shown on the B-24 above was accurate. He said the aircraft was "quite a famous plane in these parts." Indeed, sources online say "The Dragon and His Tail" probably was the largest nose artwork on any U.S. bomber. In fact, the artwork extended all the way down to the plain's tail, surpassing the apparent limitation in the phrase "nose art." The artwork was painted by Staff Sgt. Sarkis E. Bartigian, and if you Google "The Dragon and His Tail nose art" on the Internet, you can find a lot of information about it. This link has a good description of it. Hopefully these photos are not considered inappropriate; they have a significant historical import, and I am not including a couple that are more graphic than you see here. 

Above and below: There is no information on either of these photos of soldiers and/or fliers, but my instincts tell me there is family on mother's side in the photo above, and that below are servicemen that maybe Dad knew or came across -- or perhaps they were just some fliers of extraordinary repute or in the same unit who asked for a group portrait by the communication corps photographer. The man on the left in the photo above also appears in a larger, more high-quality portrait among the war pictures Nicole sent me, which is why I'm thinking he's somehow a relation.

 

After spending so much space and time writing and talking about my father, some of you might be curious about what Dad looked like. So I'm ending this post with a couple of pictures of Joe Konz Sr. in his Army fatigues. The casual one above was taken in 1943 while Dad was stationed in Puerto Rico, a place he described in glowing terms on multiple occasions to us kids in our growing up years. Dad was so impressed with Puerto Rico that he often said he wanted to go back there some day. Alas, he never did. Below is a grouping of what appeared to have been a family photo session at Sinnissippi Park in Rockford, Ill., in 1941. Dad (on the left) is in full uniform and hat with his father (my grandfather) on the right, Dad's younger sister in front of his father, and Dad's stepmother in front of Dad. In my years growing up in Wisconsin, Dad told me he transmitted, via teletype, news of the official Japanese surrender document-signing aboard the USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945. After the war, Dad resumed work as a teletype operator for United Press International (UPI), the former news wire service. He initially worked in Chicago, his hometown, and then, in 1955, transferred to UPI's Milwaukee Bureau. He retired from UPI in the 1970s. Among documents I came across from the batches of my parents’ personal items Nicole sent me was a laudatory write-up by UPI of Dad's teletype work in the war.