Military Records: Billy Maxwell & Ernie Pyle, 1993, Winn Parish, LA.
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
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From: November 17, 1993 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American

Ernie Pyle: "Dead Men Had No Freedoms"

For Billy Maxwell, it was but a moment in time, forever frozen, replayed time
and again, year after year for fifty years.

Ernie Pyle was a famous war correspondent, well known for his courage in the
face of fire and his straight forward articles on war and its aftermath.

He had been in the African theater of World War II for many of its bloody
months and was along on the invasion of Sicily.

One of his articles written during a brief furlough home is touching.  He
wrote, "I've been too close to the war for too long.  I was fed up and bogged
down.  I came to despise and be revolted by the war clear out of any logical
proportion.  I couldn't find Four Freedoms among the dead men."

After coming through Sicily he wrote of the experience.  "When we fought
through Sicily, it was to many of us like seeing the same movie four
times....Through repetition I had worn clear down to the nub my ability to
weigh and describe."

When the Pacific became the main focus, Ernie Pyle was there.

Meanwhile, Winn Parish man Billy Maxwell had joined the army in January of
1942 and was assigned as a telephone lineman in field artillery.  On a small
island near the bigger Okinawa, the two men crossed paths.

"I was assigned to ride in a jeep with a colonel, a driver, and Ernie Pyle,
headed for the front lines," Maxwell recalls.  He was given no reason,
commanders seldom see the need to inform their men further than what to do.

"Up ahead of the jeep, we could see dirt fly up where sniper was shooting
across our path," Maxwell goes on.  "We knew there were Japanese snipers all
over the place.  We didn't stop, but went on into the line of fire."

As the jeep neared, the sniper made a successful bid to shoot out one of the
tires on the vehicle, or a fortunate shot.  Unable to drive further, the men
tumbled out of the jeep to take cover.

"We'd been taught to hit the lowest place when under fire," Maxwell explains. 
"We hit the ditch, but the colonel and Pyle lay flat on the dirt road."

Maxwell remembers the road as just a narrow dirt path across the island with
mountains on either side.

"I heard the colonel ask Pyle if he was all right," Maxwell continues, "and
Pyle said 'I am now.'  I was less than 15 feet away when the bullet that
killed him was fired.  It hit Pyle behind the ear."

Pyle died on the spot, of course, and Maxwell went on with his army career
until November of 1945.  Today he reads everything he encounters about the
famous man he accompanied on his final journey.  Maxwell himself is in
precarious health, having faced open heart surgery this year.  He is a
resident of Ward 9, the Zion Community, but at present is living with a cousin
until able to return home.

His life in Winn Parish was spent as a butcher, working for Clyde Smith in
Winnfield and the Olla Meat Market.