He spent part of his early career as a war correspondent covering the Italian Campaign of World War II, reporting on the surrender of German forces and witnessing the corpse of recently deceased Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
The Italian- and French-speaking Bria was sent to the Rome AP bureau in May 1944 and wrote daily dispatches from the Allied front in Italy.
Bria was flown to Milan in April 1945 to view the body of Benito Mussolini shortly after his execution, and was the first AP newsman to report on the surrender of German forces in Italy on May 2.
[1] After the war, Bria joined the AP bureau in Germany, reporting on the Nuremberg trials and the Berlin airlift, before returning to Rome and New York.
[1] He was chief AP correspondent at the United Nations in 1972–74, before returning to his Foreign Desk editor's position.