Albuquerque Honoring WWII Correspondent Ernie Pyle

ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Albuquerque is honoring a World War II correspondent known for publishing harrowing, firsthand accounts of the war and the sacrifices the young soldiers.

Ernie Pyle was born in Dana, Indiana and planned to move to Albuquerque before he died, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. Pyle was killed on April 18 by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Ie Shima in the southwestern Pacific Ocean near Okinawa.

New Mexico has honored him since the legislature declared Aug. 3 as Ernie Pyle Day in 1945. Pyle's Albuquerque house was converted into the city's first branch library and is still in operation. The home was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2006.An Albuquerque middle school is also named after Pyle.(For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Event organizers will celebrate Pyle's 117th birthday on Thursday with a keynote address by longtime war correspondent Joe Galloway and a speech by a University of New Mexico journalism professor. The yearly celebration is important to ensure that Pyle's legacy is not forgotten, they said.

"You can only hope in each of the wars that comes along to this country that somewhere out there is someone like Ernie Pyle who will go out and risk everything to tell the stories of the soldiers and Marines, the infantry, the people on the ground who are fighting that war," Galloway said.

Event organizers and participants hope that Pyle will one day receive his own national holiday.

Photo credit: Associated Press