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Show Li 1 L . J.W.U , , fc... , .,1 By JACK LAIT (Pinch Hitting this week for Walter Winchell) Memo from Manhattan With my son, paratrooper-warj correspondent George Lalt, I saw a; private projection of "The Story of GI Joe," which then had not yet opened in New York. This is a filmj centered around some of the famoui activities of Ernie Pyle. We both; have a sentimental Interest In Ernie.; I knew him when he was an lncon- splcuous desk drudge on a Washlng-j ton newspaper, a nice little guy who gave no Indication of the Immortal-! lty he-.was to attain In our profes-l slon. But George knew him morei Intimately than he knows his broth- er. They crossed together In a tiny; tub to Lisbon, flew from there to I London, shared a little flat during the murderous blitz. They went to-l gether to Africa and shared tents, i Jeeps and foxholes during the ad- verslties of the British defeat and; retreat and through the triumphs of j the allies from El Alameln to con- quest of the desert and the Medl-j terranean. They were side by side In Sicily and in Italy. George had caught malaria In the desert and came back here for a spell of rest. After that he went through campaigns in New Guinea, Sal-pan, Sal-pan, through the bitter fighting on Leyte. He made battle Jumps with the Eleventh Airborne Dl- vision and was about to go on to Luzon when the malaria caught up with him again. Gen. MacArthur ordered him flown back on sick leave. Meanwhile, Ernie Pyle had come home to rest and recuperate at his house In Albuquerque, N. M. I met George at my Beverly Hills retreat, the day after he landed In San Francisco, and while we were there Ernie visited us. He was now on his way to cover the fighting In the Pacific By this time, he was the most widely syndicated reporter In the world, the only man in my1 knowledge who ever had both tie-top tie-top best-sellers on the book market at once, and he could have commanded com-manded princely prices to lecture, write for magazines or take any of a score of broadcasting offers. . . . George, who had been through plenty with him, told him he was bound for stuff much worse and more dangerous dan-gerous than he had ever known. George pointed out to him his situation, situa-tion, on top of the world, and literally liter-ally begged him not to go. But Ernie said the very fact that he had built np so large a following was a mandate and an obligation; he couldn't quit in the middle ; he had a hunch he would never come back, but he Insisted he should go on. Ernie was light, slight chap who was always cold wore two suits of long, heavy flannel underwear un-derwear during the earlier campaigns. cam-paigns. ... As we shook hands with him and he started off on the Journey from which he was never to return, he chuckled and i aid to George: "Anyway, fellow, j down there, I won't freeze to j death!" "The Story of GI Joe" takes him1 only as far as his turning to the road to Home. . . . Burgess Meredith, who gives an uncanny personification, personifica-tion, studied under George and others who knew Ernie well and acquired his little intimate mannerisms; manner-isms; makes even those who knew Pyle think he looks like him. . . . But, though he la a star and playing a greater one, GI Joe is the hero collectively of this brave film. I call It brave because Lester Cowan put two and a half million dollars into It, though he had pledged Ernie not to glorify him, gave his principal character no suggestion of any sort of romance, and contracted $o let Ernie throw out any scenes lie didn't like. Ho did discard several, which were quite costly, because they made too much of him and too little of the men he loved and who loved him. ... Perhaps It was this spirit and faculty that lifted Ernie Pyle above inny other reporter of his generation. 'Ho was a self-effacing little follow, not physically brave, who sweated and shuddered during action, but who not only never ducked It, but wont, weary and woebegone, to seek It . . . George- tells me that during the nightly Nazi raids on London, Pyle would bo panic stricken j et lis was the flrnt one at his typewriter type-writer wheu It stopped. . . . H had a lot of resistance, lis ninny wiry Httlo mon have. . . . With ths kind of stuff he wrote, lis could have almost hs well worked miles buck of the front. But the reportur In him drove Mm right to whore things wero thickest. After many long year nt every angle Of tho bundles, I sin scnrcoly a slurry eyed worshiper of a man i dimply because ho doe n newspaper I Job well. . . . Devoting nil my spneo (this week to Knilo I'ylo mnWo. the first lima 1 bins tlmui Hint since, , HO yearn ago this week, 1 wrote mi : obituary tribute on Paul Armstrong, ' who was tho ouict nnllllii"d of I In 1 nam 1 ilonl with hero. . . . That bean out n theory which bus long aoeincil pound In mo n man In Judged III lh direct rail" of "hat h nivoiupIMiri I, i what ho nlli'inpls. |