BRANDYWINE COUNTY

About the Book

In 1941, the town of Brandywine was barely aware of the world situation.  Important things, like high school sporting events and the firehouse carnival, occupied its senses. Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and life would never be the same again. Able-bodied young men began leaving town in waves for duty on two fronts. Ground was broken for a large naval training center, some twenty miles away, and two fireworks plants, fifteen miles in another direction, received huge Army contracts to convert their production lines to ammunition. Two thousand defense girls were to be imported from depressed areas upstate to work the lines. And most of them would live in Brandywine!

Brandywine high schoolers took these momentous events with a grain of salt. Until it began affecting their lives. For one thing, upper class boys began quitting school and joining up. This made those who were left even more popular with the growing majority of high school girls. Then the boys began to see how friendly the defense girls were to them, even those who were a year or two their senior. Not equating their new found popularity with homesickness and loneliness in the girls, the boys moved into the void. Not at all happy about their traitorous schoolmates, the Brandywine girls fought back, but it seemed to be a losing battle.

Against this tapestry, Harry Birchard has tried to show in microcosm what might have been true all over America in World War II. To the high school kids, anyway, it was a bewildering, frightening, whacky, yet wonderful time. This is the story of Brandywine then.

About the Author

Harry Birchard, a retired CPA, lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Sylvia. They have three children and nine grandchildren. Brandywine County is one of three historical novels he has written.