Dillon families, if you have a WWII Fort Read Army Base veteran in your family tree, a couple of copies of a new book, APO 869, has just been delivered to the Summers County Library. The author talked about Sgt. Charles Dillon’s experience at Fort Read. APO 869, written by Judy Nickell of New Mexico, has a story to tell about life at Fort Read and her father’s relationship with a man who could be related to you.
APO 869 Recollections of Fort Read 1941-1945 is a short book about Fort Read, “an obscure U.S. Army base on the island of Trinidad in what was then the British West Indies”, said Judy Nickell. Nickell spent part of her childhood on that base and she reflects upon her time there, and what life was like for civilians and military families. Nickell explained that “much of this generation is now gone, so the book is directed to their children and grandchildren.”
The authored describes the book as dedicated to three army enlisted men who are given special attention in the narrative of the book, Nickell claimed in a phone interview last week. The copies of the books Nickell sent to Hinton have arrived. The author claims she was most interested in her father’s friendship with Sgt. Charles Dillon. Russ Nickell and Sgt. Dillon “came from the same part of West Virginia.” Dillon’s part in the author’s family’s lives is shared in APO 869.
Fort Read was built on the island of Trinidad in 1941, “the result of the Churchill-Roosevelt Land-Lease agreement, and it was closed just four years later.” Nickell’s family settled in New Mexico after the war. When she grew up she was worked as a reporter for the Albuquerque Tribune for 30 years. Now retired, Nickell has written books of local interest, she said. Some of her other books are: Atrisco to Zena Lona: A Snappy Survey of Selected Albuquerque Street Names, published by Rio Grande Books; Easy, Casual Everyday Spanish, published by Nuevo Books; and A Brief History of Albuquerque Trees, which she said was privately published for the local greens industry. In a private note from Judy Nickell she said she hopes “some of the Dillon families in Summers County will find out about it to learn about relative, Sgt. Charles Dillon”.
