Shirer was virtually unknown in 1940 when he decided there might be a book in the diary he had kept in Europe during the 1930s—specifically those sections dealing with the collapse of the European democracies and the rise of Nazi Germany.Berlin Diary first appeared in 1941, and the timing was perfect. The energy, the passion, the electricity in it were palpable. The book was an instant success, and it became the frame of reference against which thoughtful Americans judged the rush of events in Europe. It exactly matched journalist to event: the right reporter at the right place at the right time. It stood, and still stands, as so few books have ever done—a pure act of journalistic witness.

     With the German Luftwaffe flying overhead, he had entered it in the midst of the Blitz. He would stay in Britain for the next four months. With his distinctive writing style, that would later earn him a Pulitzer Prize, he vividly depicts Great Britain in her darkest hour. With France defeated and America not yet in the war, the future did not look bright for Churchill’s country. Yet, as Pyle finds out, this was not a country resigned to defeat, instead it was carrying on as best it could, determined that it would not buckle under the pressure of Hitler’s aerial raids. He spends much time in London where he sees the city, “ringed and stabbed with fire,” but also travels the length and breadth of the country, from some areas that have hardly been affected like Edinburgh, to others like Coventry that suffered greatly under the bombardment. Pyle’s inquisitive nature leads him to spend time with dockworkers of Glasgow, R.A.F. pilots in a bomber station, miners of Wales, policemen of London and families across the nation to uncover how the ordinary men and women were coping under the pressure. Ernie Pyle in England is a fascinating account of Britain during one of its darkest periods, and how with amazing resilience the British people survived. Ernest Taylor Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist. As a roaming correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain he earned wide acclaim for his accounts of ordinary people, including the likes of Harry Truman. He was killed on Iejima in the Pacific theater of war during the Battle of Okinawa on April 18, 1945. This book was first published in 1941.

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    Smith, one of the preeminent journalistic humorists of the early mid-20th century, weaves wry vignettes of events and people of his time that are both observational and autobiographical.

    Yet, within a few months Africa had become a key theatre of war. In order to keep any hold on the Mediterranean, Britain needed to protect Egypt and Malta. Naturally, it was also preoccupied with the defence of its own shores. Mussolini seized the opportunity to annexe swathes of empire and in September, the Italian Tenth Army advanced into Egypt. Throughout the first shock retreat and then the counter-attack of Operation Compass, Moorehead was in the thick of the action. Flying in the few aircraft supporting the army, going out on daring night patrols and raids, he experienced the reality of desert war conducted on what he later called a ‘shoestring’ – 36,000 Allied soldiers attempting to hold out against 200,000 Italians. From Cairo, Moorehead reported on the airborne invasion of Crete and the ‘lowpoint for the fortunes of the British in the Middle East’. By the end of the summer, with Axis troops exhausted for the moment, Field-Marshal Wavell, with typical military understatement, summed up the year as ‘some setbacks, some successes’.