WWII SERVICE BANNER
First German Zion Ev. Lutheran Church
Bridgeport, Connecticut

(Correction: 10/11/2022) From the Chronicle of Zion Lutheran Church; November 8, 1942 … “The Men’s Club presented the Church with a Service Flag decorated with 26 stars, representing the young men in the service of their Country. This Flag was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies and placed in the Parish Hall.”* The number stars would be increased to 88, 1 1/2-inch stars, sewn onto the original 34 by 58 inch wool banner, to indicate members that were in military service during WWII.
Each star represented one member of the congregation in active service. The Two gold stars in the center are for the two members who were killed while serving. They were Staff Sergeant George Adam Rinko, United States Army Air Corps, who died 14 October 1943 when the B-17 he was in, was shot down while participating in a raid on Schweinfurt, Germany, and Richard Leonard Scott, United States Marine Corps, who died January 1946 on Okinawa.
* The original Church Chronicle was written in German translated in the 1970s by Mrs. Margaret Connock.
