Newsman who flashed word of Nazi surrender dies

George E. Bria, the Associated Press newsman who flashed word of the German surrender in Italy at World War II’s end and went on to become chief U.N. correspondent, a key news editor and a widely published gardening columnist, died Saturday. He was 101.

Bria died at a New York hospital after his health had declined for a time, said his daughter, Judy Storey.

As a young reporter, Bria bore witness to Benito Mussolini’s death and covered the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Later, as a senior foreign news editor at AP’s New York headquarters, he helped define and shape the day’s news and prepare generations of journalists to cover the world.

“George Bria was a multitalented journalist of many interests, a dedicated professional of the old school who exemplified the best of the AP during a long, distinguished career,” said AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee.

Reared in Waterbury, Connecticut, by Italian immigrant parents, Bria set his sights on becoming a foreign correspondent after earning degrees from Amherst and Middlebury colleges. He learned the reporter’s trade in four years at the Waterbury Democrat and Hartford Courant newspapers.

He was hired by AP’s Boston bureau in November 1942, and had barely arrived on the job when he was awakened one midnight to help cover the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, which took 492 lives.

In May 1944, the news agency sent the Italian- and French-speaking Bria to the European war zone. He landed in his native Rome one week behind the conquering Allied armies, and during the coming months wrote daily dispatches on Allied advances up the Italian peninsula.

In late April 1945, he flew to Milan to report on one of the war’s climactic episodes — Mussolini’s summary execution — writing a firsthand account of being ushered into a makeshift morgue to view the naked body of the toppled Italian dictator.

Back in Rome on May 2, he reported to the world that the German armies in northern Italy and part of Austria had surrendered. Five days later, the remaining Nazi forces in Europe capitulated.