After 51 Years, Overdue Book Is Back

When a library book has been overdue for half a century, it’s usually a good bet the book isn’t coming back.

But one volume checked out of the Port Hueneme library during World War II and due Dec. 20, 1944, has returned, thanks to a Tulsa, Okla., man.

Librarians received a copy of the children’s book “Bomber Pilot” in the mail from Burdette “Pete” Payne, a World War II buff who found the old hardcover at a Tulsa estate sale.

“I thought, ‘Oh brother,’ ” said Mary Lynch, head librarian at the Ray D. Prueter Library in Port Hueneme. “We’ve had it happen before, that people buy a book at a yard sale or used bookstore and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, this is a library book.’ . . . But this is the furthest overdue book that I’ve seen.”

The book has been out so long that if the late-return fine were calculated at the library’s current rate--and if the library didn’t have a $6 fine limit--whoever checked it out would owe a cool $3,600, Lynch said.

Just how “Bomber Pilot” wound up in Oklahoma is a mystery to both Lynch and Payne. Payne speculates that a sailor stationed in Ventura County during the war checked out the book for his family and accidentally carried it with him when he was transferred elsewhere. With his twin interests in the war and aviation, Payne didn’t hesitate to buy the book when he found it in January. But inside he found a card from the library listing the due date.

He sent it back partly out of curiosity--to see if it really was overdue--and partly out of conviction that returning it was the proper thing to do. “If it was my book, I’d want it back,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s been lost for 50 years.”

Safely back in Ventura County, “Bomber Pilot” probably faces a coddled future. The paper is worn with thumbing and acid damage, Lynch said, and would not handle the stress of being checked out again, even if readers returned it.

“I doubt very much it will be reinstated in the collection,” she said.