14. Willie and Joe Earned Bill Mauldin a Pulitzer Prize
It was a good thing that Bill Mauldin stood up to Patton and did not cave in under pressure. Back home, the Willie and Joe cartoons became a wild success. Not only with the military, but also with civilians after they were syndicated. They earned Mauldin a Pulitzer Prize in 1945. As Band of Brothers author Stephen Ambrose described Willie and Joe: “More than anyone else, save only Ernie Pyle, [Mauldin] caught the trials and travails of the GI. For anyone who wants to know what it was like to be an infantryman in World War II, this is the place to start – and finish.”
After the war, Mauldin returned to civilian life, published collections of his wartime cartoons, and free-lanced before joining the St. Louis Post Dispatch as an editorial cartoonist. In 1959, he won another Pulitzer Prize, this one for a cartoon depicting the lack of civil liberties in the Soviet Union. In 1962, by which point his cartoons were widely syndicated, he switched to the Chicago Sun Times. His work also appeared in numerous magazines, such as Sports Illustrated and Life. Bill Mauldin died in 2003, aged 81, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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