This fascinating account of oil camp life in Venezuela in 1940 was found online in the CAL TECH Library Science & Engineering alumni publication archives. I was led to it by Steve Sleightholm who told me that he (somehow) stumbled upon it while conducting an Internet search. So I'm extremely appreciative of his invaluable tip as it allows me to share it here.

I have no further information about the author of the article, Ed Layton. But in the seven months he was there on special assignment, he appears to have traveled quite extensively and to have gotten a pretty good look at what life was like during those years in the Venezuelan oil camps. One interesting remark was that a lot of the exploratory work in Venezuela was postponed until the “cessation of European hostilities” - presumably until the end of the Second World War. I would imagine that the focus of the industry in Venezuela at that time was really on producing as much petroleum as possible for the war effort.

I have not been able to find any apparent copyright restrictions which would prevent me from reprinting the report here. This report is important in the sense that it's a historical account of Venezuelan oil camp history during the war years. Archived in a rather obscure location within the CAL TECH engineering archives for all these years, I'm happy to be able to once again bring light to it here, where the context of it's historical message can best be appreciated.

About three months after the publication of his first article on Venezuela in the CAL TECH Alumni Review, Ed Layton wrote & published a second article about Venezuela. This follow-up article was about a trip he took to the Venezuelan Andes, and also makes for interesting reading.