Voices

Online Magazine of the Missouri Historical Society

Spring 2009

 

Visitors to the MHM Library and Research Center can request to see Joseph Broz's scrapbook, which is part of the World War I collections in the Department of Photographs and Prints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Joseph Broz used cameras to document his war experiences, fellow soldier Eugene "Tex" Branshaw recorded his journey with pen and paper. In his scrapbook, Broz described Branshaw as a brilliant writer of poetry and humor and collected many of his poems for the scrapbook. Below is the first stanza of one of the poems, "Only A Volunteer."

Why didn’t I wait to be drafted, and be led to the train by a band,

Or put in a claim for exemption – O! Why did I put up my hand?

Why didn’t I wait for the banquets? Why didn’t I wait to be cheered?

For the drafted men get the credit. While I only “VOLUNTEERED.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another of Branshaw's poems from Broz's scrapbook:

To Those Who Have Gone West On Their Last-Patrol
        —A Memory—

We watched him take off from the airdome
And shoot, like a streak of grey,
Off toward the Forest of Argonne
And we watched him fade away.

That night we watched and we waited
And we hoped and we prayed in vain
Oh, many a flare we fired that night
But he never came back again.

Somewhere beyond the Argonne
Somebody saw him fall,
Some of him mud, some of him blood,
Most of him not at all.

Maybe an archie got him
As he made for the German line
But he died with might and with honor
For his plane was, nosed to the Rhine.

Here is a tribute to those who serve
From those who stand and wait,
We honor you, we envy you,
We envy even your fate.

And tho' there be only an humble cross
To stand at the head of your grave,
The world will always remember you
And cherish the gift you gave.

Beer, Skittles, Cooties, and Guns

Scrapbook Memories of Joseph Broz, World War I Veteran

Introduction by Gene Carroll, MHM Volunteer, Exhibits and Research

 

 
 
Joseph Broz in training at Camp Leaside in Toronto. Photograph, 1917. Missouri History Museum.  
   

President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany and its allies on April 6, 1917. A patriotic 18-year-old named Joseph G. Broz volunteered for induction into the Aviation Section of the Army Signal Corps at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis on April 29, 1917. What distinguishes Broz from the other recruits is that he used a camera to document his experiences.

Whether Broz used a box camera or a folding camera is not known. Nor do we know if he kept a journal of his days in the war. But when he sat down in 1968 to compile a scrapbook, he produced pictures and wrote his observations, the highs and lows, the joys and sorrows, of a young man’s experiences in the war to end all wars. His army career took him from St. Louis to Texas, Canada, and New Jersey, then to England and France. He moved along the battlefields of France before returning to St. Louis. He traveled by truck, ship, French cattle car, and on foot. His early pictures were of the mud and tents in Texas, and the final ones were those he took on the USS Pueblo coming home.

Along the way, he encountered military leaders, a soldier and prolific poet named Tex Branshaw, military grave sites, heroes among his comrades, airplane crashes, and accidents, and they became subjects for his camera and thus part of his life story. These early experiences are what the young Joseph Broz brought to life with his camera, capturing the people, the places, and the machines, as well as the destruction and waste caused by the war.

Joseph Broz eventually returned to St. Louis after the war and eventually retired as vice president of Nordberg Manufacturing. He donated his war scrapbook to the Missouri History Museum in the 1980s.

Broz organized his scrapbook with meticulous detail. To preserve the integrity of his work, we are reproducing entire pages of the scrapbook without editing. Following are selections that include military and flight training with aero squadrons, crossing the English Channel, war heroes and fallen soldiers, adventures in Paris, and life as a soldier.

Click on the album pages below to enlarge

 
 
   
  Joseph Broz recalls his days at Camp Leaside training camping in Toronto.
 
   
  Broz captured many crashes on film during flight training in Canada.
 
   
  Crossing rough and choppy seas to England. 
 
   
  Broz remembers a fallen soldier.
 
   
  Lt. Donald Hudson, a World War I flying ace.
 
   
  Broz found time for fun in Paris.
 
   
  The soliders encountered a dearth of bathing facilities in France.
 
   
  Cooties often made nights miserable for the soldiers.