From the Overseas Mails Branch Weekly Reports and my note of a Discussion Forum thread from 10+ years ago, a 3d airmail postcard service from the UK to forces in the Middle East and East Africa (and Malta) was introduced on 2 April 1941 and withdrawn on 7 December 1942.  Neither OMB nor the Forum discussion (which related to an outgoing item) mention whether there was a reciprocal service and I would like to confirm that there was - ie were service personnel entitled to send airmail postcards from British APOs in those theatres to the UK for 3d?

I have, for example, this item originating at Nakuru but accepted by APO 186 at Khartoum.

Thanks
Nick Guy

I have a postcard from Tanganyika addressed to a US Army Post Office (attached) which I am writing up and I hope someone may be able to improve my understanding of its routing.  The card, postmarked at Moshi is addressed to an officer at HQ, CAFW, APO 625, US Army.  CAFW is the abbreviated title of the US Air Transport Command's Central African Wing which operated under that designation from 15 December 1943 to 31 July 1944 and had its headquarters at Accra where US APO 625 was located.  I am wondering whether the East African PO - or the East African Army Postal Service, since the cover seems to have been passed to APO 81 in Mombasa - would know where US Army POs were located, or would they need to send them to the USA to be redistributed?  Alternatively, were US Army POs treated as the USA wherever situate?  15c was the correct, Imperial, rate for a civilian postcard addressed to Accra whereas a card addressed to the USA incurred the foreign rate of 20c.

Thanks
Nick

I am curious about an apparent discrepancy in the availability of these for service personnel in 1941.  Bill Colley, in the second edition of The Airmails of East Africa to 1952 (East Africa Study Circle: 2009, ISBN 09515865 7 2) reprints two Kenya Government Notices relating to the introduction of these.  The first, dated 13 June 1941, gives the rate of postage for them addressed by "members of His Majesty's Forces of the United Kingdom serving in the Colony to persons in the United Kingdom."  The second, dated 23 January 1942, gives them for "members of His Majesty's Forces serving in the Colony."

The main Army presence in Kenya in June 1941 was the King's African Rifles, the West African Brigades and the South Africans although it would soon only be the KAR. Did British personnel posted to them retain the status of being "Forces of the United Kingdom?"  As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) the Europeans serving in these units (who made up the officers and a proportion of the NCOs and specialists) were a mixture of locally recruited and personnel posted from the UK; it's difficult to imagine a Kenyan with relatives in the UK being denied the privilege of writing AMLCs to them when someone serving alongside him but posted from the UK was allowed it.  So were the KAR (and the West African Frontier Force) "His Majesty's Forces [b]of the United Kingdom[/b]?"  If not, perhaps the lawyers(?) drafting the Notice had failed to grasp the intention of the originators.

Following on from this, I have an AMLC postmarked 13 December at APO 75 (Harar), where the sender gives his return address as 2594475 Sig D Clayton, 46 W/T 2 Coy. 25 A Corps Sig, c/o APO EA Force and is writing to his mother in the UK.  I seem to recall from earlier forum posts that service numbers contain information about the status of their bearer; does this confirm what seems likely, that Sig Clayton was posted from Britain rather than locally recruited.  And is "25 A Corps" 25 African Corps?

I have an Airgraph (ie the message enlarged from the microfilm) addressed from Birmingham to 2/LT J. L. ADAMS, R.T.F.G.G., A.P.O. 4860 which came to me enclosed in an East African delivery envelope with an E.A. A.P.O. 87 postmark.  Where airgraphs are now in envelopes, it is, of course, impossible to say whether they originally formed a pair but it would be interesting to know for sure whether this airgraph was at least delivered in East Africa or from Nairobi (since the Nairobi airgraph station at one time or another served forces across much of Africa).  I have been unable to establish what RTFGG stood for or where it was - can anyone help, please?  Likewise, can anyone tell me where APO 4860 was (indeed are there any published listings of locations/duties of the APO numbers used as part of addresses as opposed to the APO numbers used in postmarks which I understand are [deliberately?] different) please?

Thanks for any ideas

Nick Guy

Hello Ross

In response to my query in the Bulletin of the East Africa Study Circle, Bill Colley (Hon Life Member of the EASC - aka "Uncle Bill" in this forum) has told me that he recalls that when he was seconded to install a Police Radio Network in Northern Kenya in early 1951, there was a post office in the army camp at Nanyuki manned, he thinks, by two Africans - but he notes that his was some time ago and he is relying on memory as he has no documentation and his friends from the East African postal service of that time are no longer with us.  This was in addition to the post office in Nanyuki itself.  He considers that there is no reason that SO should be an acronym of anything other than Sub-Office.

So not 100% definite, I am afraid, but I hope this is of use to you.  I will be publishing it in our Replies to Queries in the September Bulletin so you are getting an advance view!

Nick Guy

I've attached scans of a postcard from Kenya to Italy that I thought looked interesting (and cheap) when I saw it.  The vendor describes the cachet as an Italian Army marking - I'd like to confirm that (and if possible be a bit more specific!).  The marking is over the stamps and it seems likely to have been applied in Italy - does anyone know whether that was a common practice or why it was done?

Thanks
Nick Guy

I have attached scans (front and back) of a recent acquisition.  It is postmarked by East African APO 77 believed to be based at Addis Ababa (Rossiter/Proud: History of the East African Army Postal Service) in the period after the Italian occupation when partial control had been restored to Haile Selassie but a large British presence remained. It is addressed to Sudan, and I am interested to see if I can say anything about the censor officer.  The cover is signed and stamped by the censor, and the signature is one of those that I have little hope of being able to decipher, but appears to have two elements.  If it does they would normally be the officer's name and rank in that order (the rank is not infrequently omitted, leaving only one element), but the second element that I would expect to be the rank I cannot identify the second as a British rank.  I wondered if anyone can tell me if it could be a rank in the Sudanese Defence Force which I understand used ranks derived from the Egyptian and ultimately Turkish army?  If someone can make more progress than me with the actual name that would be a bonus, as would an interpretation of the initials of the second line of the address which at present I cannot even read, let alone expand!

I raised the question of the location of EA APO 84 in a thread a few months ago and this led to more general comments on other APO locations.

I was looking at

Military censor markings,1939-1945, and related air mail services (I.O.S.C. Seychelles, no.9.)
Fitton, KB.  Indian Ocean Study Circle, June 1993

(for another thread in the forum) and noticed that Keith Fitton lists EA APO 84 unequivocally at Mombasa  - interesting since my original question arose because the History of the East African Army Postal Service by Stuart Rossiter, edited by E B Proud said Mombasa in one place and Nairobi in another.  However, Keith Fitton says APO 89 was at Kisumu - which was one that as I noted Rossiter had elsewhere assigned to Nairobi with a high degree of confidence!

Nick Guy

According to the List of Offices in the History of the East African Army Postal Service by Stuart Rossiter, edited by E B Proud and published posthumously by Proud-Bailey Co Ltd, this postmark was one of the six additional numbered postmarks (84-89) used at East African APO 2 at Nairobi.   In the list of offices for Chapter 6, Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, APO 84 is stated to be a stationary office at Mombasa.  Harry Henning in East Africa: World War II (published 1996 by the East Africa Study Circle, ISBN 0-9515865-2-1) comments that "APO 84-89 were also used at Nairobi" but Harry's was a much broader work with a greatly simplified report of the East African APOs.  I've always understood that the Nairobi location is the correct one, but it would be good to have confirmation.

Thanks

Nick Guy

A cover addressed only to Sgt L L de Verteuil, 12 Division, GPO, East African Forces in 1941 (12th African Division being one of the Divisions opposing Italian forces in Kenya in 1940 - 1941) has amongst the annotations to the address the three lines:

[u]T.P.R.[/u]
O.C.T.U.
Njoro

with the underlining of T.P.R. and the punctuation as shown.  The two acronyms may be in a different hand, however.  I have grasped that OCTU is Officer Cadet Training Unit but there is a reference in Malcolm Page's [i]A History of the King's African Rifles[/i] (published by Leo Cooper in 1998; p 59) to the OCTU at Nakuru - Njoro is some 25 km from Nakuru.  I have not been able to find what T.P.R. stands for - I have found Tpr is Trooper but that presumably should not have full stops inserted between the letters.  Could it be a department of the OCTU at a separate location?

Thank you

Nick

I'm afraid I've not got myself into the habit of checking the members' forum regularly so this is extremely late, but I hpoe completes the comments on rates in the earlier thread on this topic.
From the table in BEA: The Bulletin of the East Africa Study Circle, 17(105), Sep 2013, p 74 (part of the final article of a series on surface postal rates of EAP/Kenya by Vicki Archard in issues 102-105) the Imperial/Commonwealth surface rate and thus the GB rate was 20c for the first ounce until 1st January 1958 when it rose to 30c.  Proud, in his Postal History of Kenya, gives airmail rates that came into force on the 19th February 1947 with the rate to the UK being 1s 30c for the first half ounce (the UK rate was not changed from earlier listings), and says this was replaced by a rate of 1/- on 1st June 1947.  He then lists the "rates of Postage" "in 1956" when the UK rate was again 1s 30c.  I don't have any other lists of air mail rates after 1952 (when the UK rate was still 1/-) but the Kenya Uganda and Tanganyika 1s 30c stamp was issued on the 1st December 1955.
Without any documentary evidence whatever, but since many of the non-Kenyan troops deployed in the emergency were British, I had assumed that the forces rate would reflect the rates allowed British forces serving overseas but converted into local currency when they used the local post office rather than an FPO - if the East African Shilling is assumed to be at parity with the sterling shilling, 20c = 2.4d and 25c = 3d, and I have seen 2½d and 3d forces airmail covers through the FPOs stationed in Kenya during the Emergency.  I can offer no authority for that suggestion, though.
Nick Guy