World War II in Pictures- On 18 April 1945, journalist, Ernie Pyle was shot by a Japanese sniper near the front lines / 18 April is National Columnist Day in remembrance of Ernie Pyle.

The burial of Ernie Pyle

If there ever was a man collectively loved by all in the Military during the Second World War, it was war correspondent Ernie Pyle.An honorary grunt, Pyle was a correspondent known for living and sleeping in the same conditions as the men he reported about and told his stories in an unforgiving fashion. He didn’t report the statistic of a battle, or how many miles the Army had moved in a single day. For Pyle, the war was about the men who fought it.

 
On this day in 1945, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Ie Shima off the coast of Okinawa. Extremely popular, especially with the average GI, whose life and death he reported on (American infantrymen braved enemy fire to recover Pyle's body), Pyle had been at the London Blitz of 1941 and saw action in North Africa, Italy, France, and the Pacific. A monument exists to him to this day on Ie Shima, describing him simply as "a buddy."