EDITOR’S NOTE: The Story of G.I. Joe was on the CBS Late Movie on October 13, 1972 and May 18, 1973.

Ernie Pyle, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and war correspondent, is revered for his stories about the ordinary American men who fought in World War II. His work was so impactful that President Harry Truman acknowledged, “No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen.”

As for this movie, when they were picking someone to play Pyle, he told the filmmakers, “For God’s sake, don’t let them make me look like a fool.”

Producer Lester Cowan picked Burgess Meredith, a captain in the Army at the time and could not be released from active duty. Presidential advisor Harry Hopkins overruled that order, overruled that order, and General George C. Marshall approved Meredith’s honorable discharge.

He spent time with Pyle in New Mexico as the writer recovered from surviving an accident bombing at the start of Operation Cobra in Normandy. They believed that Meredith was the best actor for the role besides Leslie Howard, who had recently died in a plane crash.

Director William A. Wellman, a decorated combat pilot during World War I who served in the Lafayette Flying Corps of the French Air Force and earned a Croix de Guerre with two palms for valorous action, asked the Army for 150 soldiers and demanded that they speak their own dialogue, live with the actors and train with them.

The 18th Infantry, U.S. Army, a unit that had never seen combat, is sent to the front lines. Lt. Bill Walker (Robert Mitchum) allows Pyle, who is inexperienced in combat, to accompany him. Despite a brutal defeat at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, they become efficient killing machines. The movie doesn’t shy away from the horrors of war, depicting a battle near Monte Cassino that forces the men into caves, eating from cold ration cans for Christmas and slowly losing their sanity. As a man Pyle watched get married dies in combat and another suffers a breakdown, the writer learns that he has won the Pulitzer, which seems like no comfort. After reuniting with the unit after the battle, he sees a long line of mules carrying the dead, the last one holding his friend Walker, which causes the men to weep openly.

Pyle’s poignant words, “For those beneath the wooden crosses, there is nothing we can do, except perhaps to pause and murmur, ‘Thanks pal, thanks.'”, encapsulate the profound loss and the enduring gratitude felt by those who survived the war.

Pyle was pretty honest about the movie, saying, “They are still calling it The Story of G.I. Joe. I never did like the title, but nobody could think of a better one, and I was too lazy to try.” Sadly, he was killed in action on Ie Shima during the invasion of Okinawa two months before the premiere of the movie about his life.

Sources

Cotillion : Ernie Pyle – War Correspondent. http://cotillion.mu.nu/archives/223272.php

William A. Wellman — Wikipedia Republished // WIKI 2. https://wiki2.org/en/William_Wellman

Story of G.I. Joe | International Military Forum – IMF. https://www.military-quotes.com/forum/story-g-joe-t515.html?s=71be3e6c2acdb3eb06984571079155df

In the Movies: Wartime Columns: Ernie Pyle: Indiana University. https://erniepyle.iu.edu/wartime-columns/in-the-movies.html