When I began this project the only nearby place that had N.Y. Times microfilm from the 1940’s was McHenry Library at UC Santa Cruz. I later learned that a local community college, Cabrillo College, also had NYT microfilm. But their film was of inferior quality and their equipment was poorly maintained. Eventually they decided to rely entirely on their online subscription to N.Y. Times archives and discontinued the microfilm altogether. So imagine my chagrin when I arrived at McHenry library for a day of news gathering only to find that the microfilm was gone. They had packed up all the film older than 1967 or thereabouts and sent it off to a warehouse in Berkeley. I feared that decision meant an untimely end to my project and was thoroughly disappointed. But a few phone calls to area colleges and public libraries paid off when I learned that the Monterey Public Library had a collection of N.Y. Times microfilm covering the period I needed. So in April or May of 2010 I drove to Monterey and began a relationship with the staff at the Monterey Public Library that I look forward to enjoying even though I have finished collecting the news of World War II. All these posts from July 7, 1940 until now came from MPL microfilm. This project would not have been possible without their microfilm and equipment, and also the skill, courtesy and professionalism of the librarians, technicians and volunteers. Thank you, folks. I owe you a lot more than the late fees on those books I checked out.
I want to especially thank my friend Victor, the librarian who came to be responsible for keeping their equipment running and maintained. That is no easy task where the microfilm readers are concerned. They are old machines and require TLC to keep functioning properly. Especially when this one guy comes in a couple time a month and during each visit makes as many copies as they would normally produce in several years. But Victor was always there to replenish the printer with the special paper the finicky copier insists on or to clean the glass plates when they got too grimy, or to call the contracted service company when something wore out. Twice he and a technician unrolled reels of tape that had been put on the reel backwards and put them back on correctly. All this in addition to his regular librarian duties. Victor took an interest in what I was doing and we often talked about the war and it effected our lives and the country. He had an uncle that died as a POW on a Japanese ship torpedoed by an American submarine. I learned a bit about Victor’s background over the last 5 years. For example, before he became a librarian he was a teacher. And before that he had position with the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry (Mechanized), 9th Infantry Division. He spent the period Jan. 1967-Feb. 1968 in Vietnam as a crewmember of an M113 Armored Personnel Carrier (see photo). The timing of that assignment meant that he got to experience not just the well-known Tet offensive of 1968 but also the one in 1967.
One other thing I learned about Victor is how he got his name. He was born 70 years ago today, on September 2, 1945. So his name came right out of the news.
Happy birthday, Victor, and thank you for your lifetime of service to our country.