George C. "Bob" Bales (1920-2016)

George Carson Bales, nicknamed Bob, was born on April 5, 1920, in Terre Haute, Indiana. His parents were William F. Bales (1891-1960), a farmer, and Beatrice Myer Bales (1896-1977), a farmer's wife and a postmistress at the Dana, Indiana, post office for thirty-seven years. Bob had an older brother, Jack Truitt Bales (1918-2011), who was an aviator, engineer, and real estate developer. You can read more about him on the website Find A Grave, here.

In addition to their many accomplishments on their own, the Bales brothers had connections to fame and accomplishment through their family. They are descended from Mordecai Beall (1739-?), who served in a Maryland military unit during the Revolutionary War. (Beall's son William changed the spelling of the family name.) They are also descended from Thomas White, a member of the Boston Tea Party. Hoosiers will recognize Dana, where Beatrice Bales worked as postmistress, as the hometown of war correspondent and author Ernie Pyle (1900-1945). According to Pyle's biographer, Jack and Bob Bales are the step-grandsons of Pyle's Aunt Mary Bales. (1) It was from Pyle that Bob Bales received his first set of oil paints, a Christmas gift in 1931. Pyle visited his relative Jack Bales, who called him "Uncle Shag," in the South Pacific during World War II and wrote about eating fried chicken from Indiana, canned by Aunt Mary and sent halfway around the world.

The Bales family lived in Vermillion County, the skinniest county in Indiana, when the boys were young. Both Jack and Bob matriculated at the University of Illinois, Jack to study law and Bob to study art under visiting portraitist Robert Philipp (1895-1981). (2) Bob went on to study portraiture under Will Foster (1882-1953) in Los Angeles, and under Robert Brackman (1898-1980) in New York City. (3)

Bob Bales graduated from the University of Illinois in 1941 and went into the U.S. Army. During World War II, he flew C-46s in the European Theatre. He was also qualified as a pilot and observer on B-24s. (Jack Bales was also an aviator during the war and served in the South Pacific.) Separating in December 1945, Bob studied art in Los Angeles and went to work for the Walt Disney studios on the strength of just one drawing he carried to his job interview. He worked as an illustrator on Song of the South (1946), the Little Toot and Pecos Bill segments of Melody Time (1948), and The Wind in the Willows (1949).

Bob returned to active duty in 1947 and served as a pilot in the southeast and east Asia region, deploying to the Philippines in 1950 with the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing. In July 1950, at the start of the Korean War, he volunteered to go to the peninsula, where he helped establish a forward airfield, only to tear it down again as North Korean and Chinese forces advanced on the position. He was the only professional artist on the peninsula during that first hard winter. Using Jeep gas as paint thinner, he executed eight rapid-fire canvases, reducing his brushes to mere nubs in the process. Bob's Korean paintings were later part of a group of canvases he donated to the U.S. Air Force.

From 1952 to 1963, Bob was instrumental in the development of the U.S. Air Force art program, eventually serving as chief and retiring in 1963 as a lieutenant colonel. He joined the staff of Pepperdine University, earning a doctorate in business administration in 1971 and rising to the level of a vice-presidency within the university. He retired to Birmingham, Alabama, his wife's hometown, in 1980.

In addition to being an artist, aviator, and university administrator, Bob Bales was the author of Jet Aces of the Korean Conflict (1957), Ernie Pyle: A Hoosier Childhood (2002), and Ernie Pyle's Southwest (2003). After his death, his widow, Peggy Bales, remarked, "He lived life to the fullest like no one I ever knew." Among the other accomplishments of his long life and career: Eagle Scout, varsity wrestler, horseshoe pitcher, member of the Society of Illustrators, skin diver, and hunter. Bob Bales died on December 13, 2016, at age ninety-six.

Notes

(1) See The Story of Ernie Pyle by Lee G. Miller (New York: The Viking Press, 1950), p. 394.

(2) Born Moses Solomon Philipp, the artist was known as Robert in his youth. He later changed his name legally. George Carson Bales--with no Robert in sight--is nicknamed Bob. Could he have followed the example of his famous teacher?

(3) Philipp and Brackman both painted portraits of movie stars. I wonder if those connections helped Bob Bales break into moviemaking as an artist at the Walt Disney studios.

"USAF Friends Near K-9, Korea" by George C. Bales. K-9 was near the coast in far southern South Korea. I was stationed in the central part of the peninsula, south of Seoul, more than forty years later. Despite the passage of those four decades and more, I can say that this doesn't look very much different from the place where I served.

Revised and updated on December 6, 2019.
Text and captions copyright 2016, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Ernie Pyle and G.I. Joe-Part Two

Today, November 11, 2015, is Veteran's Day, and on this occasion I would like to write a little more about Ernie Pyle and G.I. Joe.

I was in Irvington on October 31 for the annual Halloween Festival. For those not familiar with the history of Indianapolis and its neighborhoods, Irvington is on the east side of the city. Founded in 1870 and later annexed by Indianapolis, Irvington is characterized by winding avenues and historic houses. It was once a place for artists and writers. Kin Hubbard, creator of Abe Martin, lived there. So did painter and teacher William Forsyth. Many of the streets are named for artists and writers as well, including Audubon Avenue, Irving Avenue, Hawthorne Avenue, and Bolton Avenue, named for Hoosier poet Sarah Bolton. The first Irvington Halloween Festival took place on October 31, 1927. This year, in the sixty-eighth year of the festival, we walked among Batmen, Storm Troopers, Princess Leias, and other characters. We even found Waldo. Towards the end of our stay, we stopped in at Bookmamas, a small, independent bookstore on our old street. There I found a book I had never seen before, An Ernie Pyle Album: Indiana to Ie Shima by Lee G. Miller (1946). In that book is the following image:

Photo by the American Red Cross.

That's Ernie Pyle on the left and cartoonist Dave Breger on the right. Breger is showing the journalist a mural he created for a Red Cross club either in Northern Ireland or England. The caption doesn't make it clear where this photograph was taken (it was probably in Northern Ireland), but it would have been in the summer of 1942, about the time that Breger's G.I. Joe made its debut in Yank. Ernie Pyle flew to Ireland in June 1942 and spent about six weeks visiting with troops in the British Isles. In November 1942, he shipped out for North Africa to cover the Allied invasion.

In the first part of this article, from May 27, 2014 (here), I speculated about the origin of the title of the G.I. Joe comic book from the 1950s and the name of the Hasbro action figure from the 1960s. I think it more likely that the comic book and action figure were named after the Ernie Pyle biopic The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) than after Dave Breger's comic panel from 1942, but this photograph confirms that Pyle knew of the expression G.I. Joe almost from the beginning, if Breger was in fact its originator. Whether the title of the movie came from the title of Breger's cartoon creation is still an unanswered question.

Here are some other images of Ernie Pyle from the same book:

In London with a cartoon by David Low (1891-1963), a cartoonist born in New Zealand but thought of as a Britisher. Low inscribed the cartoon to Pyle. Photo by Ferenz Fedor.

Four sketches by combat artist Carol Johnson (ca. 1916-2003). Links to articles about Johnson: "Voices: Honoring Veterans Exhibit Opens Nov. 10" and "Carol Johnson’s WWII Illustrations on View at Art Center’s Hutto-Patterson Exhibition Hall" by Christine Spines.

A portrait drawing by combat artist George Biddle (1885-1973) from June 15, 1943.

Finally, a cartoon from Yank: The Army Weekly, from October 6, 1944, by Sergeant Al Melinger.

I saw The Story of G.I. Joe not long ago and kept my eyes peeled for a soldier with a flower stuck in his helmet strap. I didn't see him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there. (I missed the first few minutes of the movie.) If the soldier had been in the movie, a link might be made between it and the comic book. In any case, the story of the expression G.I. Joe is a little fuller now with the first image shown above. 

Happy Veteran's Day to all. Let us honor all those who have fallen by devoting ourselves to the cause of human freedom for which they fought.

Text and captions copyright 2015, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Ernie Pyle and G.I. Joe

If you count by fives, this is an anniversary year for wars and wartime events. The First World War, then called the Great War, now also called World War I, commenced one hundred years ago, on July 28, 1914. After an armistice and peace treaty in 1918-1919 and a twenty-year respite, war resumed on September 1, 1939, seventy-five years ago this year. Seventy years ago next week, on June 6, 1944, Allied forces cracked Hitler's "Fortress Europe" by landing at Normandy. And fifty years ago this summer, on August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to go to war against North Vietnam.

There were happier events in 1964. The Beatles arrived in the United States for the first time on February 7 and performed on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9. The arrival of John, Paul, George, and Ringo on American shores was no wartime event, but it signaled a British Invasion. The Ford Mustang made its debut that year. So did Jonny Quest, on September 18. Early in 1964, at about the time The Beatles were taking America by storm, a new kind of toy was displayed at a New York City toy fair. By Christmastime, that toy was available in stores and sold well at $4 a pop. The toy was a doll, but it was never called a doll for fear boys would reject it. Instead, G.I. Joe was an "action figure" and the toy every boy wanted during the 1960s and '70s. Since then, Hasbro's G.I. Joe has made his way into comic books, animated cartoons, movies, and video games.

American soldiers were called G.I.s as early as World War I, though doughboy is the term more popularly associated with the men of that war. The term G.I. Joe is from the World War II years and came from the imagination of cartoonist Pvt. Dave Breger. (1) Born in Chicago on April 15, 1908, Breger graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in abnormal psychology and without any formal training--other than that degree--in cartooning. Breger started selling cartoons in the 1930s. He was drafted in 1941, but he didn't let life in the U.S. Army keep him from drawing. The Saturday Evening Post printed his cartoon series Private Breger beginning on August 30, 1941. The Army noticed the young artist's talents and transferred him to its Special Services Division in New York in early 1942. On June 17, 1942, Breger's G.I. Joe made its debut in the first issue of Yank, The Army Weekly. By then of course, America was at war. In addition to millions of men under arms and women in uniform, the U.S. military sent writers, correspondents, combat artists, and cartoonists overseas. Among them--probably the most famous among them--was Ernie Pyle. Even Ernest Hemingway, who called himself "Ernie Hemorrhoid, the poor man's Pyle," paled in comparison.

Ernie Pyle was born on August 3, 1900, near Dana, Indiana. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War I and studied at Indiana University. Pyle made a name for himself as a journalist and columnist during the 1930s. When war came, he went to Europe as a war correspondent, arriving first in Belfast, Ireland, where he covered a unit of the Iowa National Guard, part of the 34th Infantry Division. A company in that unit became Pyle's favorite and the basis, in part, for a movie called The Story of G.I. Joe.

From Northern Ireland, Ernie Pyle went on to London, then North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France. (2) His dispatches from the front won him fame in Europe and back home. His book, Here Is Your War, about the campaign in North Africa, was published in 1943. For his reporting, Pyle was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1944. Other books followed towards the end and after the war. In January 1945, Pyle arrived in the Pacific Theater. Three months later, on the island of Ie Shima, he was killed by Japanese machine gun fire.

Late in 1943, Lester Cowan, an independent movie producer, began work on the film that would become The Story of G.I. Joe. The war's events raced ahead of the moviemakers; the Allies were well on their way to victory by the time filming began in late 1944. The storyline of the movie was drawn from Here Is Your War and Brave Men (1944). Burgess Meredith played Ernie Pyle. Robert Mitchum and a number of lesser-known actors and even a couple of boxers rounded out the cast. The Story of G.I. Joe was released on June 18, 1945, two months to the day after Ernie Pyle's death and after the German surrender. The movie was well received and was nominated for four Academy Awards, but came away empty handed.

In April 1950, Ziff-Davis began publishing a comic book called G.I. Joe. Set in Occupied Japan and Korea, G.I. Joe featured painted covers, some by famed pulp artist Norman Saunders. The title character is a big, brawling blond, happily going about his business of punching, kicking, gun-butting, and knocking the heads of his communist adversaries. He even wears a flower in his helmet strap. G.I. Joe lasted for fifty-one issues and came to a close in June 1957. Halfway through its run, G.I. Joe was subjected to the Mad treatment by cartoonist Wally Wood. Called "G.I. Schmoe," the sendup ran in Mad #10 (April 1954). If you have read it, you will remember the recurring punchline, "Hey, Joe! You got chewing gum?" (3) After G.I. Joe the action figure came out in 1964, DC published two issues of Showcase called G.I. Joe (#53, December 1964 and #54, February 1965). I don't know whether those were tie-ins to the release of the toy or not. After that, every comic book with the words G.I. Joe in the title was somehow or other related to Hasbro's coveted action figure.

We can be pretty sure that the comic book G.I. Joe had nothing to do with Dave Breger's original humorous version from the 1940s--as one source on the Internet claims--except for in the origin of its name. Instead, the comic book may have been inspired by the movie The Story of G.I. Joe. (4) If that's the case, and if G.I. Joe the action figure was named with the popularity of the comic book in mind, then it's likely that the lineage of "America's Movable Fighting Man" can be traced to Indiana's own Ernie Pyle. There's no telling if he would have approved, although he was always on the side of the dog-faced American soldier.

Notes

(1) The first record of the term in the New York Times, however, was in reference to Ernie Pyle's book, Here Is Your War. The Times published a book review entitled "Ernie Pyle's Story of G.I. Joe," written by Edward Streeter, on October 31, 1943 (p. BR1). The Chicago Tribune used the term for the first time on May 19, 1943.
(2) Dick Wingert (1919-1993), a native Iowan and a soldier in the 34th Infantry Division, took the same path from Northern Ireland to London, though in a different capacity. Like Dave Breger, Wingert was stationed in Louisiana before the war. He arrived with his unit in Northern Ireland in early 1942. Also like Breger, Wingert was untrained as a cartoonist, yet gained fame for his comic panel Hubert, which was printed in Stars and Stripes.
(3) In 1945, a German firm, Schon-Druck, issued a set of sixteen postcards entitled "G.I. Joe in Bavaria." The artist was named Trautloft. The situations are comic. One card shows a Bavarian boy with a large stein of beer, apparently offered for trade to G.I. Joe with the question: "You have Kaugummi?" Kaugummi is the German word for chewing gum.
(4) I haven't seen the movie, but the clincher might be if there is a G.I. who wears a flower in his helmet strap, like the comic book version of the 1950s.

The original G.I. Joe, created by Dave Breger (1908-1970) in 1942 and published in book form in 1945. Breger also drew Private Breger, which became, after the war, Mister Breger. Those two comic panels ran in syndication from 1942 to 1970. I wonder now if Antonio Prohias (1921-1998), creator of Spy vs. Spy for Mad magazine, was influenced by Breger.

A poster or lobby card for The Story of G.I. Joe, a film released through United Artists in 1945, after Ernie Pyle's death. The image is of Pyle himself and not of Burgess Meredith (1907-1997), who played him in the movie. 

A magazine advertisement for the same film. Note that the image of Pyle has been reversed. Also note the Bill Mauldin-like cartoons along the bottom. Ernie Pyle knew Bill Mauldin (1921-2003) and wrote of him for the people back home. Like Pyle, Mauldin was a Pulitzer Prize winner for his coverage of the war.

A more dramatic and Hollywood-ized poster or lobby card for The Story of G.I. Joe.

Finally, another poster, advertisement, or lobby card. This image may have predated the others, but I have saved it for last because of the dog. . . 

Which reappeared on the cover of the G.I. Joe comic book in the 1950s. I don't know whether the comic book was inspired by the movie, but the dog might be a clue.

G.I. Joe wasn't always happy-go-lucky. Here he rescues a nurse.

In 1954, G.I. Joe got the Mad treatment at the hands of Wally Wood. That's good evidence that G.I. Joe was not an obscurity. That may, in turn, be evidence of the connection between the earlier movie and the later action figure. Note the flower in Galusha Iggy Schmoe's helmet strap.

G.I. Joe in Showcase #53, which showed up in time for Christmas, 1964, at about the same time as the new G.I. Joe action figure. The cover artist was Joe Kubert.

At last, the G.I. Joe we all know in an advertisement from the 1960s. G.I. Joe was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2004. That makes this year another anniversary year.

Update (Jan. 12, 2015): If you follow a straight line long enough, it makes a circle. In 2002, Hasbro released an Ernie Pyle G.I. Joe action figure, complete with typewriter and newspaper. The release was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the landing at Normandy.

Happy Memorial Day week to all my readers, especially those who have fought to keep our country free. Or, as Ernie Pyle wrote: "Thanks, pal."

Text and captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley