Local History: World War II War Correspondent and Author Cornelius Ryan

By Terri Garlick

There comes a time in every child's life, when they realize that maybe their father isn't the smartest man in the world. But just the other day, after a conversation with my father, I was reminded that maybe mine still is.  

My octogenarian father is what you might call a history buff—always reading biographies and historical accounts, quoting famous statesmen, finding significance in minutia—so it wasn't unusual when a recent conversation turned to American history, specifically World War II. What did surprise me was an interesting fact he knew about the Ridgebury Cemetery, in northern Ridgefield: Cornelius Ryan, author and journalist, is the only famous interment there. A number of famous authors live or lived in Ridgefield: Eugene O'Neill, Howard Fast, Maurice Sendak, Richard Scarry, and Cornelius Ryan, to name a few, but only Ryan is buried here. 

Who was Cornelius Ryan? Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1920, Ryan moved to London, England in 1940 to be a war correspondent for The Daily Telegraph where he covered the war in Europe, and eventually joined George S. Patton's Third Army. In 1947, he moved to the United States to work for TIME Magazine, married, and became a naturalized citizen in 1951. He always wanted to tell a more complete story of World War II, so for many years, he travelled to Europe to compile information on the war and conduct interviews with both Allies and Germans. 

Eventually, he published several books on specific battles of WWII—The Longest Day (D-Day Invasion of Normandy), The Last Battle (Battle of Berlin), and A Bridge Too Far (Operation Market Garden/Battle of Arnhem). The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far were made into major motion pictures, for which he wrote the screenplays.  While writing his final novel/screenplay, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died while promoting the movie. Walter Cronkite gave his eulogy, while numerous soldiers from many countries paid their respects.

If interested in learning more about the Ridgebury Cemetery, please call (203) 743-0174.