6 October 1938 
San Clemente Island 
Dear Dr. Schmitt. 
Received your letter of the 1st this evening when I 
returned to the ship from the PORTLAND, another cruiser 
which we were observing in their official rehearsal for 
SRBP. Tomorrow I will be over there again for the 
actual firing of the main and secondary batteries. 
I am working now in the pay office on the ship , which 
is the one closest to the quarterdeck of the two that 
you usually looked in for me. Our work at this time 
of the quarter is especially heavy and to top it off 
we are now Commander- inChief * s flagship which is another 
150 pay accounts to take . care of. Paymaster snedaker 
is leaving on the 31st of this month and closing out his 
accounts will be another long siege of night work, in 
addition I have just taken over the job of Ship service 
Bookkeeper and it will take a 1 it tie while to catch on 
to the system they are using inasmuch as it is rather 
detailed. Not that I mind being kept busy but I can 
hardly find time off to take any pictures , or even to 
look over thoroughly what I already have . 
L ieut- Commander Age ton has not said a single thing to \ 
me about how his article was received by National Geog. _ 
even though I received a letter some time ago / saying~ that 
his pictures and manuscripts were being returned to him. 
I am in the position of course being an enlisted man that 
I cannot afford to say too much and the only way I can see 
to handl e it to get the best results in t he long run, is to 
just wait and let him tell me about it and give me back my 
pictures when he gets around to it. He is being transferred 
to the Asiatics in the near future though, and I’ll have to 
bring up the matter myself before he leaves if he cannot 
find the effort to do it himself . 
As for the Kod a chrome exposures - I used the arrow on the 
Weston meter exclusively for all readings and took no con- 
sideration whatsoever as to the distance of the subject- 
ie . - that the real close shots s h oul d be given a shorter 
exposure or a smaller diaphragm opening. I made no extra 
allowance other than the exceptionally low light readings 
that were so evident in the shots under the palm trees . 
