Postscript

AN INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE BRIA

Former AP correspondent who reported on the surrender of Italy, 1943

Conducted by Mike Oreskes

Associated Press Television
New York, Sep. 12, 2014

The figures showed that the infantry casualty involving the Germans in Italy were greater than any on the Western fronts including the German front. We had huge casualties from the early invasion of Sicily coming up the battle of Anzio beachhead and so on, but after the capture of Rome, we had gothic lines. We had one line after another of Germans that we had to capture positions. Florence and so on, it took a long time to get the Germans out of there, they were fighting bitterly to keep us occupied, to keep the troops there so that they didn’t go over onto the Western front.
—From George Bria’s AP report, 1943

MIKE ORESKES: As a correspondent how close to the combat were you ever able to get?

GEORGE BRIA: I was in Rome, I covered the main story. I was writing the story, it was the headquarters story every day. They dressed me up one day, Boots got me in a uniform, I had a helmet, I had a pack, I had everything ready to go to the beach. The jeep was coming to get me and Boots said, I can’t let you go—I got to have you I have to keep you here because of the Italians. There were all sorts of things going on in Italy at the time. For example the lynching of Donato Caretta, he was a jailer, he was one of the officials who was in control of the Rome jail where many Jews and other prisoners were then handed over to the Germans for execution, for sending to the camps. As soon as Rome had a chance to be liberated, he was going to be on trial, but a mob came in, invaded the courtroom, took him out, dumped him in the Tiber and beat him to death with oars. With oars, mind you. That was a huge story. I covered that.

MIKE ORESKES: How did you feel about that, the violence?

GEORGE BRIA: Well, you know, what I felt about it is that I have to get this out before the UP gets it out. That’s what I felt, actually. Actually, I did feel that. Then there was another story which was big, which was the trial of Pietro Caruso. He was the police chief in Rome at the time, he was the overlord of the jails and so on. He was tried, he was convicted and he was executed, and I covered the execution for the AP. And there again, I had to get it out before anyone else did. We were all there together at the execution which was quite a scene, actually. The Italian firing squad, pretty big firing squad, up from the bottom and the top, two layers of a firing squad, as I remember. There were people kneeling down and people were up and they put Caruso in a chair, strapped him in a chair with his back to the firing squad and a friar was there administering the last rites. The friar backed off, the firing guard shot, he slumped over and he died. The photographers rushed towards the body, and it was a British major there and he said, ‘gentlemen!’ and they all stopped like that. Because they didn’t want a gruesome scene, the major didn’t want a gruesome scene. So one of the guys sitting next to me said, ‘you know why they stopped, George, because that was the first time they were ever called ‘gentlemen.’

MIKE ORESKES: Tell us your story on Benito Mussolini.

GEORGE BRIA: There are various stories about this, but this is the one that has stood the test of time. It’s the story told by the guy who said he was the executioner. He went by the name of Col. Valerio, but his name was really Walter Audisio. And he was interviewed later, I interviewed him sometime later in Rome. The Communists brought him forth because he was a communist and he told us what happened. He said that Mussolini was desperate for his life and said, ‘I’ll give you an empire, I’ll give you an empire.’ Of course, they laughed at him. They took him to the wall and Claretta Petacci, his mistress was along with him. She came along to the wall, it’s kind of a strange story, and she threw herself in front of him and said, you cannot, you cannot kill Mussolini. He said, Valerio said, ‘get out of the way’, but she kept in front of him, so he shot both of them, both of them were executed. Well then, as everybody knows now they took the bodies of Mussolini, his mistress and several other fascist leaders who were executed in the same way. The partisans took them to Milan to a gasoline station and hung them upside down, dead of course, by the girders of the gasoline station. The populace or whoever wanted to come out to watch this sight, they came out and that was it.

In this February 1946 file photo, Associated Press correspondent George E. Bria works by candlelight in the AP Rome bureau during a power failure. (AP Photo)

Falcone Lucifero, member of the Royal House of Italy, right, and AP Rome correspondent George Bria are shown, May 5, 1946. (AP Photo/Frank Noel)