American Legion Post OK28, Okinawa, Japan, held their annual Ernie Pyle Memorial on April 20, 2024. The memorial was held at the Ernie Pyle Monument on Ie Shima Island 3.5 miles off the western tip of the Motobu Peninsula of west-central Okinawa; the site where Ernie Pyle was killed by enemy fire on April 19, 1945. The Legionnaires have held the memorial service at this site since 1952.
Ernie Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper war correspondent who reported on World II from England, North Africa, Italy, France, Saipan and Okinawa. He became a national folk hero by reporting on the average soldier in World War II. President Harry Truman said of Pyle, “No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen.”