Vanishing history: David J. DeJonge documents last surviving WWI vets
By Steven J. Barry
Nearly a century ago, America was engaged in what was then the bloodiest conflict the planet had ever known: World War I. Fought from 1914-1918, it is still regarded as one of the most heinous and terrible wars in history. Nations throughout Europe became slow, grinding machines of death, fighting with antiquated battle tactics but wielding newly treacherous weaponry, and thus landing in the deadly stalemate of trench warfare. Nearly 20 million people lost their lives, 116,000 of them Americans.
Remarkably, 91 years after the fighting finally ended, there still live men and women who fought and witnessed the atrocities firsthand. They were born in a time when the airplane was a notional concept, and automobiles and telephones were still fascinating novelties rather than the commonplace devices they are now.
Just a few years ago, photographer David DeJonge made it his mission to document that handful of centenarians around the world who fought in the war. His quest has led him some 85,000 miles around the globe, and he’s donated roughly $100,000 of his own funds to see the project come to fruition.
“This is a pivotal piece of American history, and a pivotal piece of global history,” DeJonge said. “Once you learn the history of WWI–they really need as much recognition as they can get.”
Each Thanksgiving his family in Michigan got together as he was growing up, DeJonge would look on as his family members pulled out an old National Geographic that featured his uncle just after he had won a Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism in the South Pacific during World War II.
DeJonge cites that memory as one that left him with a deep sense of patriotism, and helped inspire him to photograph veterans.
DeJonge was captivated by taking photos as a child, and fell into the profession after what he describes as “very much a typical photographer story.” In the mid 1990s, he began a portraiture project he called “Faces of Five Wars,” which included some WWI vets.
At that time, there were still hundreds of veterans alive in the U.S. alone. Realizing that wouldn’t be the case for long, DeJonge issued a call to action.
He contacted the Professional Photographers of America and proposed dispatching photographers from each state to take portraits of the WWI survivors in their respective regions. His proposed title for the project: “World War I: The Final Battle.”
“It got kicked around,” DeJonge said. “They never did anything with it, so I decided to go after it on my own.”
Several years passed before he was able to start on the project. During that time, the number of WWI survivors in the U.S. dwindled to just 14.
He started knocking on proverbial doors in an effort to find funding. DeJonge said he approached numerous major camera and photography equipment manufacturers about sponsorship.
“I got a response which is what I call the ‘tally ho and off you go’ response, which is, ‘Best of luck, sounds like a great project, but we’re not interested right now,’” he said.
Eventually, he got enough support from one philanthropist to cover the first few months of the undertaking. He learned immediately thereafter that time for the project was even more fleeting than he had originally thought.
“Five of them died right of the bat, before I could get to them,” DeJonge said.
DeJonge did a triage of the situation. There were three veterans left alive in the Washington, D.C. area–including America’s last living female veteran, Charlotte Winters. That would be his first stop. After D.C., he would head to the Pacific Northwest.
Taking the photos
DeJonge knew he would encounter several challenges in photographing the veterans. At more than 100 years old each, they would be rather frail and almost none of them would be able to stand. He also knew that he would have to deal with photographing them in nursing homes - frequently bland, impersonal environments. But he wanted his photos to have a rich sense of history.
“I would try to incorporate elements visually that would cause people not only to look at the subject, but also to explore the environment that they’re in,” DeJonge said.
When he photographed Winters, 109, DeJonge brought along an antique, 48-star American flag and draped it behind her.
“The better case scenarios were like Frank Buckles. He still lives at home. His study is full of books and WWI memorabilia,” DeJonge said. “It was like photographing an old WWI museum.”
Buckles is now the last surviving American WWI veteran. Just after photographing him, DeJonge still had some time left to get to the others still alive. But not much.
“By the time I flew back and regrouped and started prepping to go to the west coast, I got calls from the east coast that people had died,” DeJonge said.
He hurried west and was able to photograph veterans in San Francisco and Spokane, Wash.–there, it was 108-year-old John Babcock, a Canadian veteran who had survived gal bladder surgery just before the portrait session. DeJonge then made his way to England to photograph the world’s last remaining veterans who had seen front-line action.
DeJonge said he has been taken aback by the stories of the veterans, most of whom, he said, were lucid and could recall their ordeals in detail.
In England, he spoke with Harry Patch, one of the last men alive who had been in the trenches. As DeJonge approached Patch’s hospital room, a nurse warned him about asking about World War I.
“If you’re going to talk about the war, I’ll show you the call button, because he’s likely to go into rages and fits,” the nurse told him.
Patch had just released a book. Rather than question him directly and provoke such a reaction, DeJonge asked Patch to flip through the book and talk about some of his favorite memories. When he reached the portion where WWI began, DeJonge said Patch sank into his chair and gazed out the window.
“It looked like somebody took a 50 pound weight and pushed it onto his chest, because the memories are so vivid for him 91 years after the battle. It was an absolutely transforming moment for me,” DeJonge said.
Another veteran there, Henry Allingham, described to DeJonge riding in the back of a biplane, dropping bombs by hand and releasing passenger pigeons to which he had attached written notes detailing German positions.
There are only three other living veterans DeJonge hasn’t photographed–two in Australia and one in France–and he hopes to be able to visit them within the next few months.
In addition to donating his time and funds, DeJonge has donated a complete set of 30×40 inch prints, “framed, matted, shipped, crated,” to the Pentagon. While DeJonge said he certainly wouldn’t turn away any money for his work, financial gain hasn’t been his motivator, and he doesn’t count on making a profit from his project. In fact, he’s in the process of starting a non-profit organization around his project called Survivor Quest. He’s awaiting approval of a 501c3 status, which he said will make it easier to obtain grants to support his work.
His mission to commemorate WWI veterans hasn’t stopped with the photographs–he’s also leading an effort to build a national memorial in Washington, D.C. for WWI vets.
Aside from the photos, DeJonge said his project has also yielded a friendship with Buckles. The two stayed in touch after DeJonge photographed him, and when Buckles was recently honored at both the White House and the Pentagon, DeJonge accompanied him.
“The time with him now is really fascinating and humbling,” Dejonge said. “He’s really taken and fallen into the position of being the ambassador for nearly 5 million Americans.”
David DeJonge is a Grand Rapids, Mich. based photographer who in addition to photographing war veterans has photographed international leaders such as Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Jesse Jackson, Newt Gingrich and Senator John McCain. DeJonge took the last formal portrait of Gerald R. Ford before his death. His work has been featured in an array of international media outlets, including CNN, NBC,BBC, ABC, CBS, CBN, VOA, AP, UPI, Reuters and NPR. Learn more about his work at www.dejongestudio.com.
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