World War II Museums Show Way to VJ Day-- Part 4: Ernie Pyle, "Dead Men By Mass Production"

In Ernie Pyle's pocket the day he was killed April 18, 1945, was his final dispatch in his own handwriting, that eloquently described the horrors of war:  "Dead men by mass production-- in one country after another--  month after month and year after year.

"Dead men in winter and dead men in summer.

"Dead men is such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous.

"Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come almost to hate them."

Though most Americans nowadays have probably never heard of him, Pyle was so famous that Harry Truman, who had become president just six days earlier, announced his death.  "More than any other man, he became the spokesman of the ordinary American in arms doing so many extraodinary things," Truman said.

--GreGen