Many thanks Mike - sorry for late reply - only just found your latest in SPAM for some obscure reason!
Colin

Gentlemen,

Many thanks for all comments and apologies for late response. It does look like a BASE ARMY POST OFFICE but too poor a strike to see further details. If Geoff can add anything from Alistair's records that would be appreciated, but it would seem that we have a treble 10d rate airmail from the Middle East (Gaza possibly).
Colin

Here is a registered cover from FPO 155 dated 1 Dec 1941. Can anyone please tell me where FPO 155 was at that time? And if possible where the triangular PASSED CENSOR 2889 was applied? Assuming it was from somewhere in the Middle East can anyone confirm the airmail postage was 10d single, so this was a treble rate cover?

A correspondent has asked me if I can provide scans of cover(s) to or from SS Great Britain during the Crimean War (1855) and the Indian Mutiny (1857-8). I imagine she was being employed as a troopship for these operations. If anyone has such a cover could they please e-mail scans to me at colintabeart@btinetrnet.com and I will forward to the party concerned. Many thnks, Colin

My Dad brought this back from his time in various Japanese POW camps. I don't know what its significance was to Dad but he kept it by his bedside. As far as I know the only Japanese occupied territory that used rupees was Burma? But Dad was never in Burma. After Changi he was moved to Formosa, then Japan, and finished the war in a camp in Manchuria, which was liberated by an American Major and a Russian Colonel! Can anyone help with what the note was for, and what the adhesives are?
Many thanks, [attach id=6586]Ten Ra.jpg[/attach] Colin

Many thanks Mike - a lesson for me and us Brits all, to which I will draw attention in the article.
Colin

Great News! At the bottom of the website recommended by Reg there is a contact name and address for further info. I sent him an e-mail and got an almost immediate reply. The sender of the card went on in the U-boat service and was 1WO of U-854, lost off Swinemunde on work-up, 7 survivors; then 1WO of U-953, surrendered at Trondheim at the end of the war. Will write this up for the Journal as Chris likes to publicise the Forum, and it is a good story of co-operation and what can be discovered nowadays thanks to the Internet. Thanks again Alan and Reg - will send you a draft to make sure you are happy with it. Colin

Brilliant work you guys - many thanks. I cannot find him on the website you quote Reg - what am I doing wrong? And then the plot thickens - U 415 was sunk a few miles off Brest. Surely the survivors would have been rescued by German craft and taken into Brest rather than be taken prisoner by the Brits? So how did he become a POW? Presumably joined another boat and was finally taken prisoner after this one was lost?
Many thanks again, Colin

Many thanks Reg. V Disappointing, but can't win them all! Best wishes, Colin

Many thanks Peter. Looks like I have been sold a pup. Do you know of any way to discover to what ship Oblt s Z Gunter Zelmer belonged please?
Colin

Attached scans show card dated 16 March 1946 from POW Camp 17 (Lodge Moor, Sheffield) to Germany. Written by Oblt z S Gunter Zelmer, prisoner no D342424. The seller said it was from a survivor of U-93. She was sunk on 15 Jab 1942 by HMS Hesperus, and there were survivors. I have tried U-boat Net, Wikipedia etc but have yet to be able to find a crew list or a list of survivors. Can anyone help verify if Zelmer was indeed an officer of U 93 when sunk?

As a bonus, would be grateful if anyone could translate the message! Many thnks, Colin

Many thanks Robert - that is another extremely helpful answer.
Best wishes, Colin

Thank you Neil - yes, very helpful. Suggestion that the writer was a hotel guest makes sense - maybe "Sidney" was the crew member he/she was trying to write to.
Colin

Just a comment - one thing you will not find is a Chaplain serving in a submarine. We regarded them as bad luck, plus of course everyone in a submarine is needed to watchkeep - we did not carry passengers! THere would probably have been Chaplains as part of a Depot Ship's Company.
Colin

This is quite the weirdest cover I have yet seen to a British submarine. Addressed to "Submarine Obreon" - misspelt for Oberon. Sent airmail, registered, express from Cagliari to the boat, c/o GPO Malta, but not addressed to anyone on board. Would appreciate comments/thoughts on, like: why sent airmail, express, registered? Why only to the boat and not a person? What was it about? I wondered if it might be a bill for a party at the "Albergo Ristorante Italia" but ...?  Can anyone explain the postage rate - 6 Lire in all?

For info Oberon was an experimental boat as first of a design for ops in the Far East in view of deteriorating relations with Japan. She was based at Malta at the time of this letter.