Yesterday's post – see "Picking Up & Losing A Historical Thread (Part 1)" – presented some possible further information about one of the players in the almost-70-year-old Jerome Gambit game, Sgt. W.A. Harris - E. H. Quayle, correspondence 1944.
Not only did the "Bryant College Goes to War" collection have two letters by a Sgt. Winston Arthur Harris, there was a comment that began
Thank you so much for posting these letters! My grandfather, Winston Arthur Harris...
which suggested a family member as a further contact who might have more information for my search.
While trying to figure out Sgt. Harris' connection to a school in Rhode Island, I noted his return address in the May 14, 1944 letter
644 Bomb Squadron
410 Bomb Group
A.P.O. 140, c/o PM, NY, NY
This was taking my search in a completely opposite direction: while I had previously linked Sgt. Harris to the 124th Cavalry Regiment out of Brownsville, Texas (the location given by Herman Steiner in his Los Angeles Times "Chess" column), the 644 Bomb Squadron was deployed to the European Theater of Operations, not China-Burma-India.
Indeed, if the Wikipedia entry for the 644th is correct, the Bomb Squadron was stationed at Will Rogers Field and Muskogee Army Airfield in Oklahoma in 1943; then Laurel Army Airfield in Mississippi in early 1944; and then Lakeland Army Airfield in Florida; before moving overseas to RAF Birch and RAF Gosfield, in England, in April 1944.
Thus, there is no Brownsville, Texas connection for the 644 Bomb Squadron.
It looks like there may have been (at least) two "Sgt. W. A. Harrises"...
Several years ago – see "The Joy of Discovery (Part I)" – I encountered the following Jerome Gambit game
Harris,W.A. Sgt. - Quayle,Ernest H.
Los Angeles, California, USA 1944
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 d6 8.Qxh8 Qh4 9.0-0 Nf6 10.Qd8 Bd7 11.Qxc7 Bb6 12.g3 Qh3 13.Qxd6 Bc6 14.g4 Qxg4+ White resigned
It had appeared – see "The Joy of Discovery (Part II)" – in Herman Steiner's "Chess" column in the Los Angeles Times for January 7, 1945, with the note "A short game by Ladderite E. H. Quayle of Westwood, Cal., and Sgt. W. A. Harris of Brownsville, Tx."
Of the latter player, I wrote
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.
That was as far as I was able to trace the early Jerome Gambiteer – see "The Joy of Discovery (Part III)".
Recently, however, I discovered (in the "Bryant College Goes to War" collection) a couple of V-mails, one written in 1944 and one written in 1945, by a Sgt. Winston A. Harris.
Could he be the same chess player?
