Condolence: Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Condolence: I did not know Bill in the Army, but I have a photo in my scrapbook of me and others getting an award in 1955 for the post pistol team championship. The back of the photo is stamped "Photo by SFC William Nemeth."

I came back to work at HEL after graduate school, and soon developed (no pun intended) a close relationship with Bill. I pursued photography as a hobby for 65+ years and used photography whenever possible in research. Bill was a great help to me in the lab, and also solving problems I encountered in my home photo lab. When Bill stopped doing work at home, I purchased his Omega 4x5 enlarger and lenses and used it to make large exhibition photos from 4x5 negatives.

I remember our last collaborative project very well. When ARL was activated in 1992, they wanted aerial photos of all the ARL assets and buildings. Bill and I were using the same camera at the time, a Rapid Omega with interchangeable backs. We loaded up all our film backs, and sat in the gunners' seats on opposite sides of a Huey helicopter and photographed all the buildings. What a ride, flying over APG at 500 ft!

One amusing experience I had was as follows. I was going to the Paris Weapons Show as a guest of the French government and I wanted to photograph everything. Bill got me 50 rolls of professional color negative film and I used my wife's Nikon point and shoot camera at the show, I think I shot 48, 36-exposure rolls of film. When I got back to APG, Bill asked home many 8x10 prints I wanted. I wanted a set for each of the US team members plus a set for each of our French hosts. So without doing the math, I said, "Just make 25 of each." Then I went off on another trip for 2 weeks. When I got back, I could not get into my office; the door wouldn't open. My office which was 12x14 ft. with an 8 ft. ceiling was jam packed with boxes of 8x10 color prints, over 43,000 of them!

The last time I saw Bill was at George Garinther's funeral at St. Patricks. I was glad to see Bill on the right side of the grass, and had a brief talk about old times.

Bill was a nice person and a pleasure to be around. I never heard him utter a word of profanity, although there were times at HEL to make a preacher cuss. He was always helpful and went out of his way to ease the stresses of doing R&D for the Army. He taught me a lot about photography and I think I was able to help him in a couple of situations.

In 1966 he loaned me a lab Leica camera with a wide-angle lens so I could make a photo that was used in C. Milton Wright's "Our Harford Heritage." (I did not own a wide angle lens at that time.)

I'm not sure I can get to the services because of ailments and schedules. But I will be in prayer for you all. If there is photography in Heaven I am sure Bill is deeply involved.

Sincerely yours,

David Hodge, Ph.D;
35 years with the HEL acoustics and robotics programs

Condolence: Jim...You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.