The Story of G.I. Joe-The Daily Ledger

The Story of G.I. Joe, also credited in prints as Ernie Pyle's Story of G.I. Joe, is a 1945 American war film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Mitchum's only career Oscar nomination.

The story is a tribute to the American infantryman (G.I. Joe) during World War II, told through the eyes of Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle, with dialogue and narration lifted from Pyle's columns. The film concentrates on one company (C Company, 18th Infantry) that Pyle accompanies into combat in Tunisia and Italy.

The Story of G.I. Joe

In 2009, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.

The Story of G.I. Joe

Plot

The untested infantrymen of C Company, 18th Infantry, U.S. Army, board trucks to travel to the front for the first time. Lt. Bill Walker allows war correspondent Ernie Pyle, himself a rookie to combat, to accompany them. Ernie follows the men all the way to the front lines through the rain and mud.

The Story of G.I. Joe

Ernie comes to know the men about whom he will write, including Sgt. Warnicki and privates Dondaro, Mew and Murphy.

Their baptism by fire occurs at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, a bloody chaotic defeat. Pyle is present at battalion headquarters when Walker arrives as a runner for his company commander. Ernie and the company part ways, but months later he seeks to find them, as he believes that they are the finest outfit in the army. He finds them on a road in Italy, about to attack a German-held town. Ernie finds that Company C has become proficient at killing without remorse. In house-to-house combat, they capture the town. After arrangements are made for Murphy to marry his nurse fiancée, a fatigued Ernie struggles to stay awake during the ceremony.

The company advances to a position in front of Monte Cassino, but, unable to advance, they are soon reduced to living in caves dug in the ground, persistent rain and mud, endless patrols and savage artillery barrages. When his men are forced to eat cold rations for Christmas dinner, Walker obtains food for them at gunpoint. Casualties are heavy, and young replacements are quickly killed before they can learn how to survive in combat. Walker is always short of lieutenants, and the veterans lose men, including Murphy. After a night patrol to capture a prisoner, Warnicki suffers a nervous breakdown and is sent to the infirmary. Ernie returns to the correspondents' quarters to write a piece on Murphy's death and is told by his fellow reporters that he has won the Pulitzer Prize for his combat reporting. Ernie again connects with the outfit after Cassino is finally taken. His reunion with the men is interrupted when a string of mules is led to them, each carrying the dead body of a G.I. to be placed on the ground. A final mule, led by Dondaro, bears the body of Walker. The soldiers express their grief in the presence of Walker's corpse.

Ernie joins the company as it proceeds down the road, narrating its conclusion: "For those beneath the wooden crosses, there is nothing we can do, except perhaps to pause and murmur, 'Thanks pal, thanks.'"