soldiers: July 2009 Archives

It's amazing where York County people turn up.

As I posted earlier, a friend gave me some original copies of Red Lion Echoes, a small paper meant for the service people from the Red Lion area during World War II to keep them up to date on local happenings. The men and women who received the paper would write back to let everyone know what they were doing overseas.

Click here for pervious Echoes post.

Below is an excerpt of a letter from Captain C. William Trout to his parents in Red Lion. Captain Trout was serving in Japan, just after Japanese surrender, with the 441st Counter Intelligence Corps.

A friend recently gave me a some copies of Red Lion Echoes to pass on to the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives. Her father-in-law was the editor of the newsletter, which was: "Published monthly by the Citizens of Red Lion and Vicinity" during World War II. It was send to the servicemen and women of the Red Lion area and also kept local citizens up-to-date on those troops.

I couldn't let these pieces of local history pass through my hands without reading them They bring home how the war affected just about everyone in some way.

Anyone familiar with Yoe knows it still isn't very big, somewhere around 1,000 residents now, probably a good many less in 1945. Still, as the item below from Red Lion Echoes shows, leaders can, and do, come from very small towns. It was published shortly after the war was officially over.