I attended a memorial service a few days ago for another one of the World War II veterans that we are losing so fast. This one was for a very special lady, Lt. Mary Appler Moon, one of the first woman officers in the regular Navy, the very first one
World War II Archives
I have to stretch the York County, Pa. history connection a bit for this post, but I can do it. First, in one of my recent posts on the York County World War II USO, I mentioned that my former neighbor, Muriel Smith, who was one of the local USO
I’m still getting responses to my recent York Sunday News column and related blog posts on the York World War II USO facilities and activities. Local artist Jean Fix shared that Margaret Sarah Lewis was her elementary art teacher. Lewis painted the murals that I understand are still visible in
More information keeps turning up on USO activities locally during World War II. This undated newspaper article and photograph from the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archive files shows volunteers packing up the canteen at the Pennsylvania Railroad station on North Street. It mentions a fifth anniversary USO celebration, so it
I learn a lot from the readers of this blog and of my York Sunday News column. Please keep sharing your information. In my recent column and blog on York’s USO activities I mentioned that the Salvation Army was one of the USO’s founders, nationally and locally. George Lenkner of
A friend who has two grandsons in the Navy recently commented on how much those grandsons have appreciated services offered by the USO. Local USO volunteers played an important part in York County home front service during World War II, serving almost 88,000 service men and women pausing briefly at
You may have heard of “The York Plan.” You also might know that it had something to do with defense manufacturing during World War II, when York County manufacturing was nearing its peak. But, what was the plan, how did it come about and why did it become a nationwide
Pulitzer Prize winning author Rick Atkinson’s Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945, the third volume of his popular World War II trilogy is getting rave reviews. I haven’t read it yet, but from the excerpts that I have read online, one of the major players in
As I mentioned in my recent York Sunday News column, from 1942 to 1945 the Red Lion Cabinet Company was dedicated to making products for the military, working with other companies as part of the York Plan, a locally initiated system of wartime manufacturing cooperation that became a national model.
The aerial photo above is the cover of an undated booklet giving statistics on the Red Lion Cabinet Company. It was probably done around 1953 when York County manufacturing was booming and the cabinet company itself was at its peak. The buildings still stand, occupying much of the northeastern part