January 30, 2002

Daniel De Luce, whose account of the resistance campaign against the Nazis in Yugoslavia during World War II earned him a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, died yesterday in Escondido. He was 90.

Mr. De Luce, a Rancho Bernardo resident since 1980, died at Palomar Medical Center, where he was taken after suffering a fall late Thursday at his home.

He had been weakened by a heart attack about six years ago, said his wife, Alma.

In 1943, as an Associated Press correspondent, Mr. De Luce arranged transportation on an Italian boat to Yugoslavia, where he met the partisan forces led by Marshal Tito.

His four-part series on the partisan resistance to the Nazis provided the most vivid insight up to that time on the underground forces. The Pulitzer, awarded to him in 1944, was a highlight in a journalism career that spanned nearly 50 years.

Mr. De Luce, a Yuma, Ariz., native, began working in 1929 in San Francisco's AP bureau as an office assistant. He transferred to the Los Angeles bureau while attending UCLA, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics.

His goal was to become a war correspondent, but because AP required its foreign correspondents to have at least a year of experience on a daily newspaper, he took a job with the Los Angeles Examiner, covering local news.

In 1939, with a year under his belt, he returned to AP and was sent to Budapest, Hungary. Reporting on the events that led to World War II, Mr. De Luce later traveled to Poland during its fall to Germany and covered the Italian and German invasion of Greece.

Accompanied by other correspondents and his wife, who was providing photographs, he left Greece for Turkey on a fishing boat.

"He covered Turkey until it became apparent that the Middle East was going to be attacked," his wife said. "The British came in from the south and the Soviets from the north, to prevent the Germans from going further into the Middle East."

Mr. De Luce went on to cover the British retreat from Burma, the American campaigns in North Africa and Italy and the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany.

He reported from Jordan on the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1947-48 before returning to Europe to serve as AP bureau chief in Frankfurt, Germany.

In 1956, he was assigned to AP headquarters in New York City, where he retired 20 years later as a deputy general manager.

"As soon as Dan retired, we decided to leave Manhattan," his wife said. "We traveled in the South Pacific for four months, visiting the islands and doing a lot of snorkeling."

They maintained homes in Nevada and Rancho Bernardo for a few years before settling in Rancho Bernardo.

Unlike many former journalists in the community, he was not a member of the Rancho Bernardo Press Club. "We took a lot of cruises and wandered around the world," his wife said. "We were only here half the time."

In addition to his wife, Mr. De Luce is survived by a sister, Roberta Hartnack of Santa Barbara; and a brother, Richard of Palos Verdes Estates.

Cremation is planned. No services are scheduled.

Post Extras