<p>The celebrated New York Times outdoor columnist and paratrooper who parachuted into Normandy during World War II, died Saturday.</p>
Nelson Bryant, a celebrated New York Times outdoor columnist and Army paratrooper who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day during World War II, died Saturday at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. He was 96.
An avid sportsman who hunted, fished and knew every inch of the Island’s back woods, marshlands, beaches and surrounding waters, Mr. Bryant had lived in West Tisbury and close to the land for nearly all his long life. Blunt-spoken, salty and smart, he recalled the war years with vivid clarity, even more than half a century after they had ended. He was one of the last surviving Islanders of the Greatest Generation, along with his war colleague Ted Morgan, who died in November 2019.
At home in West Tisbury in 2014.
At home in West Tisbury in 2014.
“Sometimes I’m haunted by that goddamned war. Night after night after night,” he told the Martha’s Vineyard Museum’s oral historian Linsey Lee in a 2010 interview.
“I have a healthy respect for danger. I’m very leery of things, and think a lot about them. [But] . . . my country was at war. I detested Hitler, what was going on all over the world, and I decided that I ought to do my part. And so I tried to pick the hardest thing I could find.”
He was born on April 22, 1923, in Long Branch, N.J. His family moved to the Vineyard in 1933 during the Great Depression.
He attended schools in West Tisbury and Tisbury and finished high school at the Norfolk School for Boys in Connecticut.
He was accepted at Dartmouth College and enrolled in 1942 for a summer semester.
“It was interesting, but not very rewarding intellectually because all of us freshmen ate in one place, and we all got ill with a virulent disease,” he recalled in the interview with Ms. Lee. “Most of the time I spent in the infirmary. But anyway . . . the war was going on and I said, I can’t sit and let this go by.”
Dartmouth had a Naval Reserve Officer Program. He tried to enroll but couldn’t get in because he had been born blind in his right eye.
So he volunteered for the draft and joined the Army. He tested into Second Signal Service Battalion.
“It was a high-flying intelligence outfit, decoding and that sort of thing,” he recalled. “But I had nothing to do with words or decoding. My job was to work with the supply sergeant and hand out clothes to all the people that were studying how to break codes.” He continued:
“This was Army. And it was boring. As a matter of fact it was so boring that I memorized the names of all — let’s say there were 100 men. Just for something to do. For instance, I still remember the last one. It was Frederick W. Zander, and his identification was 12125356.”
He was keen to join the Airborne despite his eyesight, and found a way to get in by reading the eye test on both sides with his good eye.
He eventually qualified to become a paratrooper and excelled at rifle training, partly thanks to a lifetime spent hunting on the Vineyard, even though he could only shoot from his left side. He joined the 82nd Airborne Division’s 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
“I found my first jump unpleasant,” he recalled in the interview with Ms. Lee. “I was scared. But I had wanted to do something that was difficult. I didn’t want to hand out socks and shoes. I didn’t want to be a cook in a kitchen. I wanted to be a frontline soldier.”
He jumped into Normandy the night before D-Day and jumped into to Holland and in the Battle of the Bulge. He left Sissonne, France, after he was wounded.
In a 2011 interview with the Martha’s Vineyard Magazine he recalled the incident.
Mr. Bryant (left) after Normandy in 1944.
Mr. Bryant (left) after Normandy in 1944.
“I was a sort of a scout,” he said. “I had a working knowledge of French from the Vineyard Haven school, where Lena McCoy had taught me, and I had taken French that one semester at Dartmouth, so I was taking patrols out at night because I could talk a little with the French people. We’d go to farmhouses and try to find out what the farmers knew about the Germans. I was on one of these patrols and a machine gun up on a hill was fired. It killed my fellow soldier and a bullet went through my right chest. I was just lying there on the ground and one of our patrols came by me. Then it came back and Maj. Shields Warren, the officer in charge of the patrol, stepped over me and said, Nelson, if you don’t want to be taken prisoner, you’d better cut out of here. And so, with the help of a buddy, I got up. I spent five days after that hidden in a hedgerow with others who were wounded, and then an ambulance took me to a field hospital on the English Channel.”
In a remarkable story, two years ago a Dutch man found a knife in his attic that Mr. Bryant had lost during a jump, and tracked him down through the internet to return it to him.
When the war ended, Mr. Bryant returned to the Vineyard and married Jean Morgan from Edgartown. They had four children. He worked briefly at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution before returning to Dartmouth on the GI Bill. He received a fellowship to study English at the graduate level at Brown University, but left after finding that academic life didn’t suit him.
He worked for a few New England newspapers, serving as managing editor of the Daily Eagle in Claremont, N.H., but was drawn back to the Vineyard in 1965 to work with his brother in law Bob Morgan who had started a dock-building business.
In the late 1960s a friend encouraged him to approach the New York Times after Oscar Godbout, the newspaper’s longtime outdoors columnist, had died.
“So I wrote to the sports editor of the Times,” he recalled, “and I was asked down to meet with Turner Catledge, the managing editor, and Clifton Daniel, who was married to Margaret Truman. It really wasn’t much of an interview. I just sat there smoking my pipe and encouraging them to talk about themselves, though Catledge, who was a Southerner, did ask me if I knew how to kill a possum and promptly gave me a description. Anyway, they asked me to go home and write three columns and they’d pay me for them whether they used them or not.” He continued:
“Well, they hired me, but they wanted me to move to New York and with a young family, I said how in hell could I do that. I told them I’d have to have quite a pad in the city. It would have to be big enough for five canoes and 20 guns and 20 or 30 fishing rods and boxes of knives and tenting equipment and sleeping bags and decoys and a wife and four kids and an ailing mother. So it was agreed that I could keep the Vineyard as my home base.”
For the next 30 years he wrote three to five columns a week for the New York Times and did what he loved best: hunting, fishing and spending time outdoors. He traveled to Scotland to shoot grouse, to Alaska to fish for salmon and to Wyoming to hunt elk.
Divorced since the 1980s, in recent years he had lived behind his former family house in West Tisbury with his longtime partner and artist Ruth Kirchmeier, who survives him, surrounded by the trappings of his outdoor life. He cut his own firewood, grew a vegetable garden, hunted ducks and went oystering in the Tisbury Great Pond.
He authored books, including Fresh Air, Bright Water: Adventures in Wood, Field and Stream (1971); The Wildfowler’s World (1973, with Hanson Carroll); Outdoors, a collection of his columns (1990); and a memoir Mill Pond Joe: Naturalist, Writer, Journalist and New York Times Columnist (2014).
He contributed to the Gazette and the Martha’s Vineyard Magazine, and in his later years wrote for the Martha’s Vineyard Times.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete.
Comments
A hero forever. RIP dear
Kib Bramhall West TisburyA hero forever. RIP dear friend.
So sad to hear that Nelson
Kristin Zern West TisburySo sad to hear that Nelson Bryant has died. He and my husband Brook Zern were trying to get together since Brook’s father Ed Zern had been friends with Nelson and both were outdoor writers, conservationists, fishermen and friends here on MV and back in NY. Brook was Ill and died in June 2019 missing the chance to meet with Nelson.
Wow Kristen I didn’t know
Jessica AllisonWow Kristen I didn’t know there was a connection, although it is an island. Nelson was my uncle - my aunt Ruth’s long time partner.
Giants. Legends. Reams of
Randy Lawrence Junction City, OhioGiants. Legends. Reams of great reads. What a generation of sporting writers.
A family friend with a long
John Alley WTA family friend with a long history of sport manship of this town. So sorry to hear this my condolances to Ruth and his family.
I am saddened by the loss of
Hannah Beecher West TisburyI am saddened by the loss of a man I’ve known since childhood. A neighbor, a hero, a relative by marriage, bigger than life. He was kind, funny, fascinating and terrifying all at the same time. My heartfelt condolences to Ruth, Jeffrey, the family and all who loved him.
Nelson and I never met, but
Capt. David Bitters DuxburyNelson and I never met, but we talked on the phone, wrote letters, and e-mailed. We both loved the outdoors and hunted and fished many of the same New England places. I once told him I wished we grew up together and were neighbors. We would of had one heck of a good time. I loved his blunt, 'Yankee" wit and his outdoors writing is some of the best. I loved his stories about shooting geese out of an outhouse, hunting for his first black duck, waiting for a heath hen, rabbit hunting in Vermont... Such wonderful writing for the NYT and in his books. Nelson will forever be one of my favorite New England writers.
A great writer, a great
Hugh Weisman ChilmarkA great writer, a great sportsman, and one of the greatest generation. My heart goes out to Ruth.
So sorry to hear this. He is
Jo-Ann West TisburySo sorry to hear this. He is part of the exhibit "Those Who Served" at MV Museum, until Friday. He can be heard telling war stories.
Nelson welcomed me to his
Len Seattle, WANelson welcomed me to his kitchen table to the summer of 2017 to talk about fishing and writing, and he gave me a few of his hand-tied flies that he called "Acrobats". They had a weighted head and a bit of foam in the tail, so that with each strip of the fly line, they would dance into a light current. I took them down to Lobsterville the following dusk, and despite romantic dreams of a 20 lb striper, it were the scup that regaled in the acrobat's performance. The Acrobats rest now on my shelf, but will dance again at dogfish bar when the tides and moons are right.
Farewell to ye great man of
Jesse Reinfelder NYFarewell to ye great man of letters, outdoorsman extraordinaire and brave patriot.
May your soul be conveyed to the happy hunting grounds.
Rest easy Paratrooper! You
Kevin Devine Oak BluffsRest easy Paratrooper! You are a true American hero. Your service to our great nation will forever be appreciated Sir! Until Valhalla.
#AATW!!!
A gifted writer and gentle
T Bone Oak BluffsA gifted writer and gentle soul. He faced adversity with courage and dignity. Gone but never forgotten.
Nelson taught me how to use
Paul Karasik West TisburyNelson taught me how to use and sharpen a chain saw, how to fillet a fish, how to dress a guinea hen, how to keep a compost pile, how to make a jog for sawing oversized firewood, how to cook a venison steak, and how to enjoy the earth and sky on a daily basis. From Nelson, I learned how to live on Martha's Vineyard.
My brother Paul and his
Judy Karasik Silver Spring, MarylandMy brother Paul and his family lived next door to Nelson and Ruth when their final daughter was a tiny child. In those years, she referred to him as The Nelson. Accurate, even now. RIP, The Nelson.
The world has lost yet
Mike Mercier OrleansThe world has lost yet another member of an exclusive group known by many as the greatest generation. Nelson has PCS'd to join his brothers, including fellow paratrooper and islander Ted Morgan. I will always be grateful having met both incredible men (they saved the world after all) and I'll never forget their sacrifices, their stories and their willingness to share that with us. Thank you men!
Nelson and Ed Zern, both
Dick AquinnahNelson and Ed Zern, both clever, comedic writers, were once overheard discussing Ernest Hemingway, who despite his alcoholism and long bouts of depression, also enjoyed a good joke. "Poor Papa," Nelson said to Zern, "I don't think he'd like these modern stand-up guys, these late night shows."
Zern nodded smartly and said, "You know, Nelson, comedians are different from you and me."
"That's right, Ed," said Nelson, not missing a beat. "They have more funny."
Rest in peace, all three great men.
Oh, my goodness. Another like
Elinore Standard Burlington VTOh, my goodness. Another like with the Old Vineyard gone! Hunting and fishing and farming as a way of life -- with few frills and a joy in the land, the marshes, the ocean. Nelson was a touchstone, a link with those former times: the sport, the hunt, the lyrical appreciation of nature at its roughest and most sublime..
I admired Nelson Bryant for
Albert Fischer West TisburyI admired Nelson Bryant for his writings, for his courage in WW2, and for his love of the land and sea.
I will miss him.
My parents kept a canoe next
Cynthia Riggs West TisburyMy parents kept a canoe next to Dan'l Manter's boat house on Tisbury Great Pond, and to get there, we'd walk through the woods on the other side of Doane's pasture. We'd often come across a little hut that Nelson Bryant had built. As a child, I liked to imagine that if I were to get lost in those great woods, I could find shelter in one of his huts until searchers found me. He was my big sister's age, which gave him great authority in my mind. We'll miss him.
Nelson Bryant's NY Times
Chris I. Nanuet, New YorkNelson Bryant's NY Times columns inspired me into the world of fly fishing and chasing grouse. Nelson became a friend who welcomed me to his dinner table and the opportunity to fish Dogfish Bar in early June. He was a gentle soul, generous with information and his
Sand eel flies. I will cherish our letters and our conversations over the past 35 years. Rest in peace.
I met Nelson Bryant only once
Marc Chinard Portland, OregonI met Nelson Bryant only once when I was young teenager and was briefly visiting Nancy and Everett Whiting in their kitchen. There was something about him, his bearing, his charisma that was warmly commanding. I came upon his writings later in life when I looked forward to his New York Times columns. His writing described a sense of place so subtly vivid that I felt transported and as if I was standing next to him. Whether it was fishing or walking through a field his writing conveyed the sense of place exquisitely. His book, "Outdoors", graces the bookshelf of my psychotherapy office. I read and re-read the columns as a way to unwind, be transported back to a sense of place and heal.
Such a fascinating person
Frank gould OBSuch a fascinating person
Member of the 508th 45 years
Steven Harris Myrtle Beach SCMember of the 508th 45 years later, this is the example we all strived for. My condolences to his family
Dartmouth, Claremont (next
Buster and Cathy Welch ManitobaDartmouth, Claremont (next town over from mine), the outdoors in all its glory; we had a lot in common and finally met in 1997. We stayed with Ruth and Nelson many times and cannot overemphasize what fine people they are. Nelson was a true American treasure and there don't seem to be many like him, nowadays.
I was so sad to learn of Mr.
R Johnson New HampshireI was so sad to learn of Mr. Bryant's death. He wrote a wonderful article for New Hampshire Wildlife Journal titled, "The Magic of North Country Trout Fishing," back in 2016. His unique perspective and prose added so much to the article. He will be sorely missed.
i knew nelson at dartmouth
Cliff Barney Santa Cruz CAi knew nelson at dartmouth when i was still wet behind the ears and he a returning vet. despite my innocence we became friends. i thought of him as a poet, after reading some of his long poem about the war; later he told me he had destroyed it and regretted it afterwards. with a group of dartmouth friends, i visited him, jean, and the kids in west tisbury where we enjoyed several nights of drunken charades. he lived at my parents’ house in providence when he briefly attended brown studying for a graduate degree. i visited him on the vineyard again in 1979, and we picked up where we had left off. ten years or so ago we revived our friendship by email. that eventually lapsed and i somehow missed his obit in the times, so i learned of his death only today.
he was an important person in my life. hail and farewell, nels.
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