Background
Harold Vincent Boyle was born on July 24, 1911, in Kansas City, Missouri. He was one of four children of Peter E. Boyle and Margaret Mary Gavaghan, a self-educated Irish immigrant.
(Book by Boyle, Hal)
Book by Boyle, Hal
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Harold Vincent Boyle was born on July 24, 1911, in Kansas City, Missouri. He was one of four children of Peter E. Boyle and Margaret Mary Gavaghan, a self-educated Irish immigrant.
As a youngster, Boyle had initially aspired to become a civil engineer, but because he did not excel in mathematics, he redirected his secondary school education toward a career in teaching.
After graduating from high school in Kansas City in 1928, he attended Kansas City Junior College for two years. During his first year as a college student, Boyle began his association with the Associated Press. He worked as an office boy at night in its Kansas City office and had his first story on a triple hanging published in 1928.
In 1930, Boyle enrolled at the University of Missouri in Columbia, from which he graduated with a degree in journalism and distinction in English in 1932. While completing one year of graduate study in English, he worked as an AP correspondent in Columbia. For two years he reported on intercollegiate sports and campus news.
Boyle advanced his journalistic career by becoming a night editor in St. Louis (1935 - 1936) and a feature editor in Kansas City (1936 - 1937).
Also in 1937, Boyle was reassigned to the New York City bureau of the AP, where he worked as night editor for five years. In 1942, he received his first overseas assignment, to cover American military activities as a war correspondent. Upon his arrival on the shores of North Africa in November 1942, Boyle was immediately thrust into battle.
Landing with the invasion forces amid fighting, he had to dodge enemy crossfire by swimming to the Moroccan shore. His eyewitness accounts as a correspondent continued; a year later he wrote his first human-interest column in Salerno, Italy, while under fire. Although his environment was less than conducive to writing, Boyle wrote prolifically, sometimes completing five to twelve "on the spot" stories daily.
According to other reporters, he wrote "thousands of words daily. " As the troops entered and captured cities during the European campaign, Boyle was not far behind, composing stories about the soldiers and the war. Exhibiting his characteristic drive, he once hitchhiked four hundred miles for a story.
Among the events, he covered during the war were George S. Patton's landings at Casablanca and Sicily, Mark Clark's landing at Salerno, the First Army's campaign to the Elbe, the North Africa campaign, and the Battle of the Bulge. In 1942, Boyle's column, "Leaves from a War Correspondent's Notebook, " first appeared, and eventually was featured in more than four hundred newspapers that subscribed to AP.
In 1950, he began to write on the Korean War. According to one of his AP colleagues in Korea, "he filed more copy than anyone else. " Boyle also covered the conflict in Vietnam.
At the end of the Korean War, Boyle returned to the United States, and in the late 1950's he continued his human-interest column, which featured interviews with celebrities and public figures. In 1968, after twenty-five years of distinguished reporting with the AP, Boyle had published close to six thousand columns. A year later, Help, Help! Another Day, a volume of his selected works, was published.
In 1973, Boyle announced that he was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He died of a massive heart attack in New York City.
Harold Boyle became the AP's first human-interest columnist, displaying a gift for words, unceasing curiosity, an interest in both the individual human and in humanity, a humorous approach, and a light touch. His column was read eagerly by mothers and wives nationwide, eager to hear news of their men fighting abroad. During 30 years as AP's first columnist, Boyle wrote some 7, 680 columns. He had more bylines than any other AP writer at the time of his retirement in 1974. In 1945, Boyle was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished reporting. After hostilities in Europe had ceased, Boyle went to the Pacific Theater and became one of the first correspondents to reach Tokyo after V-J Day.
(Book by Boyle, Hal)
Quotations:
"The biggest thing I have to fight is a feeling of insufficiency that I won't be able to muster the talent to do the work the way I'd like. "
When he learned of the Pulitzer Prize award, he responded with typical self-effacing modesty: "They must have made a mistake. "
Although he was described by colleagues as "warm-hearted, articulate; of blithe spirit; one of the finest journalists of our time, " Boyle harbored fears of inadequacy.
Quotes from others about the person
Boyle was lauded by colleagues for "depicting soldiers with neither embellishment or depreciation, " and his stories were "made to read like poetry. "
On November 6, 1937, Harold Boyle married Mary Frances Young; they had one child before her death in 1968.
