Ernie Pyle returns to campus, depicted in bronze
Ernie Pyle has returned to campus, and here he’ll stay for years to come.
A sculpture of the famed Pulitzer Prize-winning World War II correspondent, native Hoosier and IU alumnus was set into place outside Franklin Hall Thursday morning. It will be formally dedicated Oct. 17 as part of ceremonies inaugurating the new Media School, which will be housed in Franklin Hall.
Sculptor Harold “Tuck” Langland was on hand Thursday to guide the sculpture’s installation, which isn’t far from Langland’s other work, a sculpture of Herman B Wells that sits just east of the Sample Gates.
Late last year, IU President Michael McRobbie commissioned Langland to craft a likeness of Pyle. Langland said he immersed himself in learning all he could about Pyle, using many of the photos and resources at IU Journalism.
Pyle was editor of the Daily Student as a journalism student in the early 1920s, but left IU short of graduation to begin his reporting career. By 1935, he was a popular columnist for the Scripps-Howard chain and already had many devoted readers when, in 1942, he signed on as a war correspondent to cover World War II campaigns in Europe, North Africa and the Pacific.
At a time when most coverage focused on interviews with military leaders, Pyle’s syndicated columns depicted the lives of soldiers fighting in Africa, Europe and the Pacific. His columns also exposed Americans to the fear, bravery and hardships of everyday life in the field, and immediately generated a huge following.
Pyle was riding in a Jeep on a small island near Okinawa April 18, 1945, when enemy gunfire struck and killed him. Just months later, Japan surrendered.
Langland said he found inspiration in photographs of Pyle on the front lines. His sculpture depicts Pyle writing on a typewriter in North Africa, sitting on an ammunition crate. Langland paid careful attention to the historic details: Pyle had to manually change each line of his typewriter because the carriage return was broken, and his makeshift desk is warped because the boards had been sitting in the weather.
“He has a serious look on his face, because he was doing very serious work,” Langland said by phone from his home and studio in South Bend earlier in the week.
Langland said he added a second ammunition crate across from Pyle “so people could feel like they’re typing with Ernie Pyle. It’s an interactive feature Langland chose to match his sculpture of Herman B Wells and the sculpture of Hoagy Carmichael, created by artist Michael McAuley and installed just outside the IU Cinema. Both have room for visitors to sit “with” the figures.
Once he decided on the scene for the sculpture, Langland began to deal with the procedure. Langland is a retired professor who taught at IU South Bend for more than 30 years, all the while working on his own projects, including the Wells sculpture and many others. He said he’s seen many challenges working from concept to clay, and he often is surprised.
“A big challenge is getting the clay to form correctly, but it became Ernie very quickly.” Langland said. “Then, boom, there he is.”
Langland first created the sculpture as a 20-inch clay model, which traveled to Colorado to be laser-scanned and produced to scale. Once clay was placed over the model, now 110 percent of life-size, it was sent to Oklahoma to be cast in bronze.
The Pyle sculpture travelled from Oklahoma with a bronze gorilla that was installed in Pittsburg, Kansas, Wednesday. Pyle made his final trek to Bloomington Thursday, where Langland oversaw the installation of the statue, working with a backhoe outfitted with a hook to gently place the 1,000-pound piece into position.
Reporters, photographers, workers and onlookers soon took their chances to sit across from Pyle. Langland grabbed a laptop, placed it across from Pyle’s typewriter and took a seat.
“I enjoyed doing it very much because Ernie Pyle is someone I respect,” Langland said of the nearly year-long experience.
Larry Singell, executive dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said the addition of Ernie Pyle at Franklin Hall is symbolic of Pyle’s lasting contribution to Indiana University and to the art of storytelling.
“The Media School is really about effectively telling a story, no matter the platform.” Singell said. “And he was one of those great storytellers from our past.”
The Media School, established July 1, comprises the former School of Journalism and the departments of telecommunications and communication and culture. Part of the College of Arts and Sciences, it aims to build on the long histories of the three units while preparing students to work in a fast-changing digital media industry.
Singell said the sculpture of Ernie Pyle reflects the new school’s mission.
“It communicates we will do what needs to be done,” Singell said. “He embodied that.”
Sitting outside the new home of the Media School practicing his craft, Pyle may inspire storytellers for years to come.
Other reporters contributed to this story from the scene of the installation Oct. 9.