As I have already
written in the first
and second
installments of this short series on my great-Uncle Lowell’s army
photos, Lowell Brosius enlisted on 10 Nov 1943, started service on 1
Dec 1943, and was released from service 18 Apr 1946. He served with
the Military Police for at least a portion of that time.
This time around I
am posting some pictures that appear to have been taken around camp.
Whether it is basic training camp, a camp where he served somewhere
in Europe, some combination of both, or something else, I have no
idea. Perhaps research will eventually answer some of those
questions.
I can generally
recognize Lowell when he appears in a photo, but most if not all of
the pictures this week are unmarked, and I do not know who the other
people are. Once again, I will do my best to guess at identities
based upon the few marked pictures in Lowell’s collection, but
many in this group of pictures are particularly poorly focused and I
don’t foresee my success rate as being very good this week.
In this picture, for
instance, I wouldn’t dare try to guess the identities of the men. I
imagine that if I had been there and known them personally the
figures in this photograph would be sufficient for identification,
but that is not the case. The buildings are reasonably clear, though,
and it is interesting to imagine what life was like in those
wooden-skeletoned tents.
The only identified
person in any of Lowell’s pictures who remotely resembles this man
is Wynn Tingey, but I am not convinced that this is he. Whoever he
is, note that he is displaying something in his hands. I think it may
be a pistol, but it was evidently moved during the shutter exposure.
I also enjoy the fact that he is photographed against a background of
clean laundry.
Here are two more
men against the same background of clean laundry. Note that the man
on the left is holding a pistol. I could not find anyone in Lowell’s
marked pictures who resembled either of these men enough to merit
hazarding a guess at their identities.
I rather like this
one. It is set against the same backdrop of clean laundry, but in
this picture the subject is also photographing the photographer. I
think the man may be the same one who was holding the pistol above,
but that picture is too blurry to make a very good comparison.
There certainly
seems to have been a lot of posing going on in front of that clean
laundry that day. I would say that the man pictured on the left is
the same one who was aiming a camera at the photographer in the
picture just above, and the man on the right is the same one who I
thought somewhat resembled Wynn Tingey.
I would guess that
this photo was taken within seconds of the one above. The man on the
left is almost certainly the same man in the photograph above (as
well as the photograph above that), but the man on the right appears
to be a different person than in the picture above. I would guess him
to be Melvin Chrisman, although he also somewhat resembles Albert
Matkovich and S. J. Marquis.
Whew! It is
exhausting examining every face and comparing it to every face in
every other photograph. I think that at this point I am ready to turn
down the level of ambition just a bit. We appear to remain in the
laundry day photo session, but only for a short time longer.
And now we shall
move toward a different area of the camp (if, indeed, it is the same
camp), away from the living area toward what appears to be (judging
from my experiences watching old movies—I claim absolutely no
firsthand knowledge of army camps) the motor pool.
This is perhaps one
of my favorite pictures in this series, and not only because there is
a puppy in it. It is also one of my favorites because you can see
Lowell’s reaction to the puppy. He was a dog-lover, too, and you
can see it in his face. In case you haven’t figured it out yet,
Lowell is the man on the right. While the other man is posing for the
picture and trying to show the puppy to the camera, Lowell’s focus
is on the puppy.
Here is one last
picture, which appears to have been taken in the same general area:
Sources:
National
Archives and Records Administration, "U.S. World War II Army
Enlistment Records, 1938-1946," database, Ancestry
(www.ancestry.com
: accessed 24 Aug 2015), entry for Lowell A Brosius; citing
Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946 [Archival
Database]; ARC: 1263923. World War II Army Enlistment Records;
Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, Record
Group 64; National Archives at College Park. College Park, Maryland,
U.S.A.
National
Cemetery Administration, "U.S. Veterans Gravesites,
ca.1775-2006," database, Ancestry
(www.ancestry.com
: accessed 25 Aug 2015), entry for Lowell Brosius, Willamette
National Cemetery; citing National Cemetery Administration.
Nationwide
Gravesite Locator.
U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs, "U.S., Department of Veterans
Affairs BIRLS [Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem]
Death File, 1850-2010," database, Ancestry
(www.ancestry.com
: accessed 25 Aug 2015), entry for Lowell Brosius; citing
Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death
File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
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