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Title: A Death in San Pietro
Subtitle: The Untold Story of Ernie Pyle, John Huston, and the Fight for Purple Heart Valley
Author: Tim Brady
Narrator: Paul Boehmer
Format: Unabridged
Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-16-14
Publisher: Audible Studios
Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 4 votes
Genres: History, American
Publisher's Summary:
By the time Mark Clark's Fifth Army reached the small village of San Pietro north of Naples in the first week of December 1943, a tough but rapid sweep through Sicily came to a muddy halt. On the slopes of a distant mountain, the death of a single platoon captain, Henry Waskow, epitomized the struggle.
A Death in San Pietro chronicles the quietly heroic and beloved Captain Waskow and his company as they make their way into battle. Waskow's 36th ("Texas") Division would ultimately succeed in driving the Germans off the mountains; but not before eighty percent of Waskow's company is lost in action.
For Americans back home, two of the war's most lasting artistic expression brought horrified focus to the battlefield, already dubbed "Purple Heart Valley" by the men of the 36th. Pulitzer Prize-winner Ernie Pyle's dispatch about Waskow's death and filmmaker John Huston's award-winning documentary of the battle rivets - and shocks - the nation, bringing, as if for the first time, the awful carnage of world war into living rooms across America.
Members Reviews:
An intriguing historical backstory
Ernie Pyle's "The Death of Captain Waskow" is one of the most well-known columns about World War II, and yet the backstory of how he died during the Sicilian campaign is mostly unknown. People (like me) know the column, but the actual person is just a name - and the actual battle is lost among all the battles.
This book gives a close-up view of that series of battles, culminating in the exchange that killed Waskow - it's a mundane battle...not even a battle, but just one another ongoing series of fights. Because Pyle never met him, he was able to write objectively not about the actual person, but how the loss of one soldier impacted the men of the unit, even if briefly. Now, the reader knows the before, of what was going on around everyone.
It also gives background to Pyle's work. A lot of his columns lack present day context - his work from North Africa was relevant in 1942, but it's hard for readers of today to even remember that's where US forces first arrived overseas. Now, we can see the conditions that Pyle was reporting from.
The battle itself is described in a bit much of detail, but it gives the entire story the necessary weight. John Huston is a secondary figure, probably not deserving of equal billing, but interesting all the same.
This is good complementary history. I don't think it stands-alone, and readers will want to use this as a jumping-off point for more reading from Pyle. The column - "The Death of Captain Waskow" is reproduced here.
I've reported from Iraq as an embedded journalist, same as Pyle did (and anyone who thinks 'embedded reporting' is a new idea, should refer to Pyle's work, which is exactly the embedded model to a tee), and it's always poignant to see accounts of Pyle on the job. We can only wonder what he might have written, had he been given the perspective of a few post-war years to gain perspective. But, like Waskow, Pyle died in 1945 in an equally mundane exchange of fire, not even a battle.
Definitely a Good Read
I read a lot of WWII including Ernie Pyle's books and I knew the story of Capt.
