It is hot too difficult to manually center lines using an old proportional typewriter. As a typist, you would know the pica or width value of each letter. A lower-case 'm' for instance, might be worth 5, while a lower-case 't' might be worth 2. As I recall, the widest of all letters on the old IBM Executives was 7 (upper case W). Then it's just a matter of totalling the value of each letter, adding an average of 3 picas between each word, dividing by 2, finding the center point, backspacing the required number of units, and then typing the line. The typist had the freedom to add or subtract units between words (or even units between letters in a word) so as to make an individual line or word come out "right." I have done this exercise hundreds, if not thousands, of times, in my old life as a "repro" typist in the 1970's.
On other thing, the 'backspace' key on these typewriters moved the platen back just 1 unit. I.e., to backspace over an 'm' would take 5 strokes, over a 't' would take 3 strokes.
All of this is just to say that I am becoming convinced the Killian document is a forgery. While it is definitely possible to manually center individual typewritten lines, it seems implausible to me that such lines typed 30+ years ago would somehow exactly duplicate the same exercise of today's word processors.
Sorry to be so long winded.
"On other thing" = One other thing
I agree that it's possible. But what is the point? This was military records, not a sales brochure. The appearance should not have been a paramount concern. As I understand it, there is plenty of other evidence that it wasn't (spaces missing after commas and parentheses). More basic typing rules were disregarded, but centering to the nearest pica was followed?
I doubt it.
Are there other documents from this same unit in the same time period?
Do they show the same attention to detail?
Also, EXCUSE ME, but there is no man in the world or who has EVER been in the world who would count spaces to get centering right. That's a woman thing.
You said: As a typist, you would know the pica or width value of each letter. A lower-case 'm' for instance, might be worth 5, while a lower-case 't' might be worth 2. As I recall, the widest of all letters on the old IBM Executives was 7 (upper case W). Then it's just a matter of totalling the value of each letter, adding an average of 3 picas between each word, dividing by 2, finding the center point, backspacing the required number of units, and then typing the line. The typist had the freedom to add or subtract units between words (or even units between letters in a word) so as to make an individual line or word come out "right."
Yes, but remember...this guy was just typing an address. Wouldn't "eyeballing" a center point work fine for that? Why on earth would he have gone to SUCH pains to make sure the thing was EXACTLY centered?
He wouldn't. It's a forgery. Fraud exposed! WTG freepers, and WTG Fox!
"Sorry to be so long-winded."
You weren't long winded at all...that was very interesting. {:^)