[Richard T. Eger]

Dear John,

Larry Wilson was the "daddy" at Silver Hill of the microfilms listed in the Desk Catalog of Captured German and Japanese Air-Technical documents. Larry spent much of his time trying to convert the card catalog into an electronic database and, if he found an error, he'd correct it. Some researchers also helped. A lot of the microfilms weren't cataloged or the cataloging was extremely superficial. A lot of the documents on cataloged microfilms simply weren't listed in the card catalog.

One sort of had to feel one's way around, hoping that microfilms containing items of interest had also other documents of interest on them that hadn't been cataloged. Some series were so poorly microfilmed that the documents on them were re-microfilmed, which explained why there were previous catalog numbers on them.

I took a particular fascination to documents that had been translated by the USAAF, Navy, or contractors thereof. Many catalog cards contained cross reference to these translation reports and, with Larry's help, I compiled a cross reference listing of them.

I believe there was still more work to do on the uncataloged reels when Larry retired, but he gave it his best. As for the uncataloged documents interspersed amongst supposedly cataloged reels, these are definitely of the Ark of the Covenent type.

Things could be worse. The NASM microfilms are more or less cataloged and on 35 mm film, meaning that each reel might contain maybe 1,200-1,500 frames or so. On the other hand, the USAAF microfilms at NARA II are on 16 mm film, are only superficially described, have no document index, and one can get dizzy after an hour or so scanning them as the frames slowly pass by. There are a lot more than 1,500 frames on each reel.

Regards,
Richard