The Joy of Discovery (Part II)

I was excited to discover the Jerome Gambit game Harris - Quayle 1944, and decided to see if I could obtain the Los Angeles Times chess column referred to in the "L A TIMES 1881-1955" database – see "The Joy of Discovery (Part I)."

I contacted the Los Angeles Public Library, and Librarian Teni Bedrosian was quick to send me a PDF file of Herman Steiner's "Chess" column for January 7, 1945.

Under the heading "Correspondence Game" was the introductory note "A short game by Ladderite E. H. Quayle of Westwood, Cal., and Sgt. W. A. Harris of Brownsville, Tx."

Interesting!

Blackstone, in his database, gives Quayle's first name as "Ernest" – an educated guess on his part, or based on research of his own?

The Ernest H. Quayle Papers (1920-1939) includes five (of seven) journals by the naturalist (think: similar to Darwin and the Beagle) which currently reside in the University of Utah Mariott Library Special Collections.

I wrote to Manuscripts Librarian Dr. Stan Larsen for further information about Quayle's chess playing, if any. Unfortunately the diaries do not appear to have any chess content.

Ernest H. Quayle lived in Los Angeles in the early 1930s, but at the end of the decade he was involved Westwood is district in western LA.

As for Sgt. Harris, 1944 was war time, and Fort Brown in Brownsville, Texas was where the 124th Cavalry Regiment was stationed. The 124th remained a mounted unit until its deployment in the China-Burma-India theater of operations.