A Renaissance Man with Global Gallantry
By Benjamin Lindley
Gerald Broida and his wife, Rachelle Broida. Courtesy of Mitchel Gooze, Ancestry.
Wartime USAAF map of east Asia and area of operations, https://www.cbi-theater.com/maps/_Map_Main.html
Allied Occupation of Austria Map 1949 https://www.loc.gov/item/2017585413/
Gerald D. Broida
February 21, 1918 - January 28, 2014
Gerald Broida was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 21, 1918, to Lucy and Theodore Broida.[1] Soon after Gerald was born, Lucy and Theodore moved to Denver, where Gerald grew up with his brother Herbert, attending elementary school and graduating from North High School in 1936.[2] Denver in the late 1930s was still recovering from the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression; however, the city’s population was still growing, which meant opportunities still awaited Gerald.[3] After graduation, Gerald began working as an auto mechanic, a skill that would translate well in his Army career later on. Eventually, Gerald would move to Los Angeles where he began diesel mechanics school, a move that would further his career. There in Los Angeles, Gerald would meet his future wife, Rachelle Cordova.[4]
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Gerald felt compelled to join the war effort.[5] Because Gerald lived in California, the attack would have felt closer to home than it did for Americans out east. He attended officer candidate school in California and received an officer commission for the US Army as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Corps.[6] At the time, the US military did not have a dedicated Air Force as we know it today, so, during the outbreak of World War Two, the Air Force was a branch under the US Army called the US Army Air Corps (USAAC).[7] Later, in 1942, the USAAC was swiftly renamed to the US Army Air Force (USAAF), a closer relative to the contemporary US Air Force.[8]
In the first half of World War Two, American and British forces were fighting a major North African campaign against the German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. It appeared that after Rommel’s continuous victories in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, North Africa would soon fall to Nazi forces. However, after the Battle of El-Alamein, where the British halted Rommel’s exhausted army, the tide had turned in North Africa.[9]
Around 1942, Gerald had just left officer training academy and was on a 47-day trip across the Pacific when his converted cruise ship picked up several Australian pilots in Australia to fight in the North African campaign.[10] Now, attached to the British 8th Army, Gerald traveled up through the Red Sea up to the Suez Canal, where the North African campaign had begun to favor the British.[11] After arriving in Suez, Gerald and his unit became attached to the British 8th Army and they pushed west with fighter pilot units to chase Rommel’s fleeing army.[12] After pursuing the Germans back to Tripoli in Libya, the North African campaign of World War Two was nearing the end and the allies set their sights on a new target.
As the major Allied countries began planning a full-scale invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe, Winston Churchill of Great Britain adamantly suggested that the Allies begin by invading the Italian Peninsula, or the “soft underbelly of Europe”[13] as he liked to call it. So, in early July of 1943, just north of Tripoli, the amphibious invasion of the island of Sicily commenced. After an Allied victory in August, a strong foothold was now in place to invade the rest of Italy.[14]
In Gerald’s case, the invasion of Italy took him to the eastern half of the peninsula, where he and his unit made their way up north along the Adriatic Sea, encountering sporadic Italian and German resistance. In an interview for the Library of Congress later in life, Gerald explained how the remaining Italian Army was in bad shape. He remembered noticeably light Italian resistance and the local populations being friendly.[15] After staying in Allied-occupied Italy, Gerald was called upon to traverse the globe again and fight in a different campaign, this time in China.
China is an often misunderstood and forgotten country when it comes to World War Two in the public memory. Most will remember how the Japanese army was an aggressor against the US; however, the US was not the sole recipient of Japanese aggression during World War Two. Japan, yearning for a Japanese empire spanning most of Asia and the Pacific, invaded many countries including the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, and China.[16] In an effort to hinder the Japanese aggression in China, the Allies set up many airfields and bases in and around China. It should be noted that these airfields were constructed rapidly by Chinese laborers under harsh conditions.[17] The Allies would send out bombers and fighter planes from the Chinese bases into Japanese-occupied territories to sway the tide of the Pacific war in their favor.[18]
Under the 14th Army Air Force, affectionately named “The Flying Tigers,”[19] Gerald would continue to work as a soldier and mechanic for the airfields in southern China. In 1944, Gerald was sent to a base outside of Chengdu, a city in south-central China.[20] Gerald would spend the rest of World War Two helping pilots fight the Japanese over the skies of East Asia.
Gerald stayed in the US Army Air Force until the US Air Force was officially created in 1947.[21] Following the end of World War Two, France, Britain, the USA, and the USSR chose to divide up Germany and Austria into different sectors following the collapse of Nazi Germany.[22] The British and French split up the western region of Austria, while the US took the central region of Austria. The Soviets took the entire eastern region of Austria, with Vienna, the capital city, being split amongst the four nations as well.[23]
During his time in Austria, Gerald would have had a much more relaxed military experience than active wartime in North Africa, Italy, and China. He worked as a mechanic for the USAF in Austria while the Korean War was raging in the east.[24] During this time in Austria, it would have been a tense Cold War environment with the Russian-occupied border just miles away. However, there was no active combat in the region.[25] A map of Allied-occupied Austria depicting each Ally’s sector in 1949 is shown below for reference.
For the rest of his time in the US Air Force, Gerald would progress further into higher officer rankings, from his original commission as Second Lieutenant all the way to Major by the end of his career.[26] After the Korean War, Gerald switched from active-duty US Air Force to US Air Force Reserves, where he would remain until his retirement post-Vietnam. Gerald retired from the Air Force with an honorable discharge in 1978 following his decades-long career.
Gerald came back to Denver with Rachelle after active duty and continued to work on his passion for auto repair. He owned several gas stations and garages in the Denver metro region during the last four decades of his life. Additionally, it is said that Gerald regularly enjoyed traveling, amateur photography and wine making.[27] Unfortunately, his wife, Rachelle, passed away in 1991. Gerald never remarried and lived the rest of his life in the Denver area, with the last years of his life being spent in Heather Gardens, Aurora.[28]
Gerald was a fascinating man with an intricate life story. His lifetime of service was a remarkable achievement that spanned the globe and solidified the importance of his life in the story of 20th-century American history.
Footnotes ↓
[1] Gooze, M. (n.d.). You’ve got questions. We’ve got ancestors. Ancestry. Gerald Donald Broida. https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/195095372/person/162540708882/facts
[2] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.” Library of Congress, July 18, 2008. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.60827.
[3] Stone, Lyman. “A Population History of Denver.” Medium, August 18, 2016. https://medium.com/migration-issues/a-population-history-of-denver-8a6804e3dac5.
[4] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.”
[5] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.”
[6] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.”
[7] “U.S. Air Force.” U.S. Air Force | Urbandale, IA - Official Website. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.urbandale.org/363/US-Air-Force.
[8] “Records of the Army Air Forces [AAF].” National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/018.html.
[9] “The Struggle for North Africa, 1940-43.” National Army Museum. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/struggle-north-africa-1940-43.
[10] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.”
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] College, Hillsdale. “Were ‘Soft Underbelly’ and ‘Fortress Europe’ Churchill Phrases?” The Churchill Project - Hillsdale College, March 5, 2019. https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/soft-underbelly-fortress-europe/.
[14] Marshall, V. “The Allied Campaign in Italy, 1943-45: A Timeline, Part One.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans, May 22, 2022. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/allied-campaign-italy-1943-45-timeline-part-one.
[15] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.”
[16] “From the Collection to the Classroom: Teaching History with the National WWII Museum.” Extent of Japanese Occupation | From the Collection to the Classroom. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.ww2classroom.org/node/148.
[17] “Airfield Construction 1942-44 - China-Burma-India Theater of World War II.” cgi-theater.com. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.cbi-theater.com/airfields/airfields.html.
[18] “14th Air Force in China: From Volunteers to Regulars.” National Museum of the United States Air ForceTM. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196212/14th-air-force-in-china-from-volunteers-to-regulars/.
[19] “14th Air Force.” 14th AF - 14th Air Force - WWII - World War II - Flying Tigers - Army Air Corps Museum. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.armyaircorpsmuseum.org/wwii_14th_Air_Force.cfm.
[20] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.”
[21] “Record of AAF.” National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/018.html#:~:text=Functions:%20Provided%20advice%20and%20assistance,)%2C%20July%2026%2C%201947.
[22] “The Austrian Second Republic, 1945-1963.” Gale.com. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.gale.com/binaries/content/assets/gale-us-en/primary-sources/archives-unbound/primary-sources_archives-unbound_occupation-and-independence_the-austrian-second-republic-1945-1963.pdf.
[23] “The Soviet Occupation of Austria.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/soviet-occupation-of-austria.
[24] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.”
[25] “Neutrality of Korea: The Austrian Example – Univ.-Prof. Dr. Heinz Gärtner.” UnivProf Dr Heinz Grtner. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://homepage.univie.ac.at/heinz.gaertner/?p=2436.
[26] Elliott, Catherine. “Gerald Broida Collection.”
[27] “Gerald Broida Obituary: 1918 - 2014: Denver, CO.” Tribute Archive. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/43860882/gerald-broida.
[28] “Gerald Broida Obituary: 1918 - 2014: Denver, CO.” Tribute Archive. Accessed August 17, 2025. https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/43860882/gerald-broida.
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