Drawing Fire: The Combat Art of a Pawnee Indian, Artist, and Thunderbird in World War II

In 1940 Brummett Echohawk, an eighteen-year-old Pawnee Indian, joined the Oklahoma National Guard’s 45th Infantry Division, the vaunted Thunderbirds. Within three years his unit, a tough collection of depression era cowboys, farmers, and more than a thousand Native Americans, would distinguish themselves, in the words of General George Patton, “as one of the best if, not the best division, in the history of American arms.”

Sergeant Brummett Echohawk entered combat during the invasion of Sicily as a Sapper Team leader. Not long after landing, Echohawk found drawing supplies in a house that had been destroyed by Allied shelling. “After that, I drew every day,” Echohawk said. He protected the drawings in a 60 mm shell casing and his sketches were published in the Army’s Yank magazine, as well as syndicated in 88 newspapers.

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Sergeant Echohawk’s combat sketches capture acts of bravery and moments of terror as he and his fellow soldiers fight their way through key battles across Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio. Woven with Pawnee legend and language and quickened with wry Native wit, Drawing Fire conveys in a singular way what it was like to go to war alongside a band of Indian brothers. It stands as a sharply observed tribute to those soldiers Echohawk fought with, and those friends he lost in battle. This important book captures for all time the enduring spirit and steadfast strength of the Native American warrior.

“Echohawk’s story is among the best personal accounts of the war that one will find.”

— Flint Whitlock, author of Rock of Anzio, and editor of WWII Quarterly magazine.