dogfaces

“Ernie Pyle was the only man who plugged for the” infantry — the “dogfaces” — the soldier wrote.

Charyn unflinchingly relates war’s parade of grotesqueries: German bombs on the beach set off “a minor hurricane, dogfaces flying into the air like rag dolls, every sort of paraphernalia struck the water — helmets, Hershey bars, and human limbs.”

Government archives, this collection of more than 160 sketches and paintings recalls such familiar dogfaces as Bill Mauldin's Willie & Joe and George Baker's Sad Sack, as well as the efforts of many unknowns.

For eight hours preceding the attack, the skies over the river were illuminated by giant searchlights enabling tanks and troops to assemble and cross the river �and all this was dutifully reported back to headquarters by us "dogfaces."

A downy-cheeked sergeant in World War II, he drafted the immortal dogfaces Willie and Joe, followed up in 1952 with a sketch-board tour of combat in Korea.