For six tense weeks in 1943, Sidney Shore was missing in action.

The young man was an Army Air Forces bombardier, part of a B-24 crew that was shot down while flying bombing raids out of Tunisia into Italy. The co-pilot and the tail-gunner were killed, but Mr. Shore, who jumped from the burning plane, survived and was captured by Italian soldiers waiting below.

It was the start of more than two years of life as a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany, during which Mr. Shore edited a monthly newsletter, taught a class on short stories to fellow POWs, and marched in subfreezing temperatures to another prison camp, where Gen. George S. Patton's troops freed him.

"It was a big deal to have a brother who was a POW," said his younger brother, Sherman Shore, who received a monthly letter from his brother during his imprisonment. "I was very proud of an older brother who was serving in the Air Corps."

Mr. Shore, a journalist-turned-press agent whose curiosity led him all over the world and back to Pittsburgh upon his retirement, died Monday at the Veterans Affairs Hospital after a battle with pneumonia. He was 91.

The Schenley High School alumnus graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1939 and was early draftee in the Army two years later.

In the Army Air Forces, Mr. Shore became a bombardier assigned to the Ninth Air Force. His plane was shot down on the crew's sixth and final mission.

Six weeks later, a postcard from the Vatican telling his family he was a prisoner in Italy offered a fleeting sense of relief.

"At least we knew he was alive," his brother said.

German troops invaded Italy and shipped Mr. Shore and other POWs in a boxcar north to Stalag Luft III in Germany. He was active there, editing a one-page monthly newspaper and teaching classes to fellow prisoners.

"He never quite sat still for anything," his brother said.

Russian soldiers approached from the east two years later, and the Germans forced POWs to march 100 miles west to another camp. A few months later, they were liberated.

Mr. Shore returned to Pittsburgh and began a short stint at United Press International. After graduate school at the Sorbonne in Paris, he worked for the United Nations in Geneva, leading press relations for the International Refugee Organization.

He became a representative to the International Committee on European Migration in Paris and ventured around Europe. He mingled with the likes of Jane Russell and famed wine grower Baron Philippe de Rothschild, who, he said, offered him 70 bottles of wine for his 70th birthday. Mr. Shore's letters home detailed his exploits.

"He did all the things that you want to do growing up," his brother said. "We kind of lived vicariously through him."

He returned to work in the United States in the 1960s, opening his own press relations office in New York City, but later returned to Paris.

He kept a small farm and vineyard in southern France and encouraged his many nieces and nephews to visit during harvest time.

At 71, Mr. Shore retired to Pittsburgh but stayed active, taking classes at Carnegie Mellon University and enjoying the city's opera, concerts and ballets.

"He did everything that he could, and loved life and loved his family," said Sherman Shore, his brother's lone survivor. "That was Sidney."

Mr. Shore was buried yesterday. Services were handled by the Ralph Schugar Chapel in Shadyside.