Thanks for the comment Peter!

My interpretation would be if the sender didn't have/wasn't sure of a fixed location to send the correspondence to,  BAPO Karachi tracked, as well as possible, postings and unit locations in India/SEAC. It was a clearing house. I believe similar arrangements existed for other theatres - eg in Cairo, for the Middle East.

Neil W

Ross

The B-1 mark is indeed Bombay. I find it interesting this style of mark was being used in WW2. Widespread use of this style as a stamp obliterator seems to have 'ceased' by 1900. 

Neil W

A comment only: I note the FPO cancellers on the 2/6 and the vignette are dated 2 DE, a day after the cds on the reg label. Strange.  I also see a faint Army Post Office cds just below the numeral 161.

Neil W

Air letter from a Major of the 1st Hyderabad Lancers, at that time stationed in Aden, to India. Cancellation at the RAF PO in Aden on 8 December 1944. Censors A6/1431, Deputy Chief Field Censor and 'square 33', both the latter presumably applied in Egypt.

Apart from the scarcity of A6/1431, what is most interesting to me is the resealing tape. Plain paper with typewritten (or copied) ' In Lieu of / A.F.W3312 / EXAMINED / BY / BASE CENSOR' .

The reason for the tape must be that the regular issue was not available. I've not seen such before, though Egypt is not my specialist field. Does anybody have any background on this, and is it unusual?

Neil W

Folks

I've been asked if anything is known about this overprint - if genuine, how, where, when and why!

Obviously unused, but I note the franking of 6as is correct for an airletter through the Aden civil posts to Imperial destinations 1945-51.

I've been through my copy of Lee and can't see anything like this.

Has anybody seen another? Grateful for any input.

Neil W

Nick

I haven't seen one from my specialist area (Aden). However, I note these dates are around the time that use of Airgraphs and Airletter Cards began in the Middle East, both also charged at 3d. I would guess that normal postcards sent airmail might also have been accepted at 3d, but use would have been small as much less could be written than on an airgraph or Airletter Card. 

Neil W

Ross

I can't directly answer your questions, except offer some thoughts based on examples from elsewhere around the Indian Ocean, particularly Socotra Island which similarly had flying boat detachments and a small garrison (from the Aden Protectorate Levies in that case).

the aircraft involved at Diego Garcia were detachments from 205 and 240 Sqns RAF both with Catalinas and 230 Squadron with Sunderlands. First use was July 1942. Probably 2 or 3 aircraft in total were at Diego Garcia at any point in time.

Experience with Socotra, and the small wartime airfields on coastal Arabia, with relatively few personnel, indicates mail was collected and flown to base by supply and swap-over aircraft and there entered the military postal system proper. For Socotra, Kamaran Is, Masirah Is, Riyan, Salalah and Ras-al-had this was Aden. In the case of the squadrons on Diego Garcia, this is likely to have been the flying boat base at Koggala (close to the city of Galle) in Ceylon, where the HQs of 205 and 230 were located, and 240 had a detachment.

maybe this helps a little!

Neil W

Mike

I'm not a 'naval expert' - but this looks very fishy to me!

1. The naval cachets I have for the 1960s are more professionally done than this which is obviously off-centre

2. The covers I have from 1967 going to a military collector in Austria are franked at 9d, which would have been the FPO and UK rate. No way is 1d a valid rate.

3. The 'cancellation' looks homemade. Even if the datestamp was accidently missed, the lines are too thick and not in sections in the way I would expect machine cancels of this period to be.

and the fact this ship was no longer in the Royal Navy.......

Neil W

Thanks for the input - somewhat of an orphan it seems, only record of the censor and no clear indication of how this unit fitted into the ME/Aden command structure. Being 'Intelligence' that may be deliberate!!

If anybody is going to Kew......!! I'll happily pay your tube fare.....as it's probably 5 hours each way for me.

Neil W

Folks,

I may or may not have posted concerning this cover before. If I have, I have a new question, and I may get a new answer to the old question!

See the attachments. the FPO cds is FPO 171 dated 9 DE 40, according to Proud, first assigned to 5 LoC FPO in Egypt AFTER this date. The enclosed letter is dated 4 Dec 40, so it would be feasible to have travelled from Aden to Egypt for processing of all ME free Xmas concession airmails. 

WIS in the sender's details is Wireless Intelligence Screen, later Wireless Observer Unit - better known later in the war as the listening element of the SigInt 'Y-service'. Y-service was bi / tri-service, hence an army gunner serving in a RAF unit and an Army Lt censor. FIRST QUESTION - does anybody know what E + SD was? (Electronic Signals/Security Division/Department is a best guess).

SECOND QUESTION: TIME ZONES - later in the letter the sender says he will be 3 hours ahead of his family in UK time when celebrating Xmas. Today Yemen and the Horn of Africa are 3 hours ahead of UK time, whilst Egypt is 2 hours. I am aware that things like double British Summer time (GMT+2 in Summer and GMT+1 in winter) applied during WW2. What I do not know is what effect these UK WW2 differences made elsewhere. +3 would imply written and censored in Aden, and transported to Egypt for processing where FPO 171 applied - any other solution might imply written and censored in Egypt with the sender on the way to a posting in Aden.

Any facts/guidance welcome!

Neil W

Colin

yes concerning the currency, 100cts to 1 Rupee from October 1942, and the stamps are Burmese Government (ie Japanese puppet) also.

as you say, odd if he was never there. A cherished souvenir of somebody?

Neil W

Ross, Mike

many thanks for the replies. As the AL is addressed to the Radio Society of Great Britain, and is complaining about the non-arrival of the Society's Bulletin, the sender is clearly a radio man, amateur or professional, so a tie-up with the Signals Section at Addis does seem a good possibility. And the endorsing/censoring officer is a Captain.. in 1945 most likely Army, and not South African Air Force.

Well, well, another example of a correspondence address being somewhat of a red-herring! And still no closer to cracking the Aden Command location code letters!

Neil

Folks

Pardon if I've overlooked this, but are there any articles(s) or publications which attempt to put locations to the army numbered censor marks?

Interpreting the attached Airletter is a case in point: the datestamp is EA APO 77, which I understand to be at Addis Abeba. The sender's correspondence address is Aden Command (M) - the correspondence indicates he's been located at (M) for over 6 months, so he's not in transit. As Addis Abeba was never under Aden Command, a reasonable possibility is that location (M) is somewhere in the various Somalilands which were part of Aden Command, but whose mail may well have gone to Addis for handling.

If I knew where 9192 was, it would help immensely!

Neil W

Peter, Chris

thanks for the recent mails.

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I have been working on a 'review article' concerning Aden in WW1, combining into a coherent whole the many short and not so short articles that have been in the Aden and Somaliland Study Group's journal (The Dhow) over the years. I was about to start inserting illustrations when the 'Pandora's box' of forgeries was opened, which together with needing to prepare the December issue of The Dhow, put me temporarily off my stroke.

A number of WWI censorship reports have made it into The Dhow over the years. Overall, these are too 'heavy' to be attachments in this Discussion Forum, so I will include a link below from which they may be downloaded. In the download is also the current draft of my very incomplete Review Article, but it does include in its Annex the complete Murray Graham monograph mentioned in the references.

My bibliography for the Review is (so far) - The Graham monograph is key.

Bibliography:

van der Bijl, N, British Military Operations in Aden & Radfan, 100 Years of British Colonial Rule
(2014), Pen & Sword Books, ISBN 9781783032914
Gavin, RJ, Aden under British Rule, 1839-1967 (1996 edn), C Hurst & Co, ISBN 9780903983143
Graham, MAM, Aden Censor Marks, 1914-19, (1965) Robson Lowe Ltd, reprinted from articles in
The Philatelist and Postal Historian.
Haythornthwaite, PJ, The World War One Source Book (1999 edn), Arms & Armour Press,
ISBN 1854093517
Lord, C & Birtles D, The Armed Forces of Aden 1839-1967, (2000), Helion & Co, ISBN 187462240X
Proud (1), E B, History of the Indian Army Postal Service, Volume II, 1914-1931, (1894)
Proud (2), E B, The Postal History of Aden & Somaliland Protectorate, (2004), Proud Bailey,
ISBN 1872465412
Robertshaw, MH, The Postmarks of Aden 1839-1939 (1946)



Concerning these two covers, I have mentioned a few things which strike me as unusual, and I now see more. Apart from the fact this type of label is not included by Halford-Watkins, which is why I asked the questions at the start of this thread. :

The Russian cover - why offload it at a backwater such as Aden for censorship? The AB-105 Aden mark is that of the Chief Postal Censor, normally met on civil mails - why does it have a Field Force label on a civil mail? - and not a Field Force censor mark? I am uneasy about the 9 days transit between London and Keetmanshoop, unless that latter datestamp is incorrectly set. I would also have expected two Aden postal marks - one on the way in and one on the way out - it is a pity the one on the cover is partly obscured.

The Sheikh Othman cover - for a mail from and to Sheikh Othman, the range of marks is most unusual. Other local covers I have seen have just the local FPO, and maybe an Aden Field Force censor, or maybe no censor at all...

THE LINK:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AhLkyiENMNj1jUSggUAB1DEbvxal?e=SKb9uc

if this doesn't work let me know by personal message and I'll think of another way!

regards
Neil