A Carmel resident found the perfect home for an artifact that had been in her family for decades.
Dr. Angie Bethel presented a $1 bill signed by World War II war correspondent Ernie Pyle to the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum on behalf of her parents, Doyle and Elvie “Bobbie” Bethel. The presentation took place on August 10 at a ceremony during the annual Ernie Pyle Fireman’s Festival in Dana, Pyle’s hometown.
The $1 bill was signed by Pyle, former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey and actor Jackie Cooper, among others.
“My mother got the bill in change in the early 1960s,” said Bethel, an endocrinologist who works in drug development for Eli Lilly Co. “She recognized it as signed by Ernie Pyle and Jack Dempsey, and it sat in a drawer for a while. Later, my father came by and started researching to find out where it came from and who had signed it.”
The $1 bill was signed by Pyle about 3 1/2 weeks before his death during the Okinawa invasion. Bethel’s father recognized it as being signed by Robert Sherrod, then a war correspondent for Time and Life magazines.
“We were living in Georgia, and my dad started reaching out to people and eventually got in touch with Robert Sherrod,” Bethel said.
Sherrod said the bill, dubbed the “Short Snorter,” was signed at a farewell party on March 25, 1945, on Asor Island, part of Ulithi Atoll (in the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific), where the invasion fleet headed for Okinawa was anchored. The unit put to sea the next day and sailed to Okinawa.
“(Sherrod) helped my dad sort out some of the names that were hard to read,” Bethel said. “It became part of history because we understood who the signers were and where it happened.”
The Short Snorter tradition arose because commercial and military pilots, especially during World War II, realized that alcohol and flying didn’t mix, and their portions or snorters of whiskey were smaller. The $1 bills became known as Short Snorters, and the term became associated with the $1 bills that fellow pilots would sign and exchange. The tradition stipulated that when the pilots met again, if one still didn’t have the Short Snorter, it was his duty to buy the other pilot drinks.
“When my father died (in November 2023), I had the bill sent to me and thought there should be a place where it could be displayed and honored,” said Bethel, whose mother is still alive.
After some research, Bethel discovered that Pyle was from Indiana and learned about the museum.
Dempsey joined the U.S. Coast Guard during the war and was in Ulithi preparing to command an assault boat on the beaches of Okinawa. Cooper served in the Navy in World War II, but it is not known why he was in Ulithi or if he was part of the Okinawa invasion.
“We are thrilled that Dr. Bethel decided to donate this artifact created by Ernie to our museum less than a month before his death,” said Steve Key, chairman of the board of the Friends of Ernie Pyle Development Fund, Inc., which operates the museum in Dana. “The short sniffer is an example of how the war brought people of diverse backgrounds from across the United States together in unlikely places around the world.”
For more information, visit erniepyle.org.
