William Bryan; Reported D-Day
William Wright Bryan, a former editor of the Atlanta Journal and the first World War II correspondent to broadcast an eyewitness account of D-Day, has died of pneumonia at 85.
Bryan died Wednesday at the Clemson Area Retirement Community.
Bryan was editor of the Atlanta Journal from 1946 to 1954. He was the newspaper’s managing editor, war correspondent and an NBC radio stringer when he became the first newsman to give a report on the D-Day invasion of France on June 6, 1944.
He covered the invasion from a transport plane dropping airborne troops. When the plane flew back to London, Bryan went on the air and made his broadcast immediately after a one-sentence announcement by the Allied command and tape-recorded statements by King George VI and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
After the war, he was named editor of the Journal. He also was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
In 1954, he left the Journal after 27 years to become editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland.
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