Another Canadian naval/Korea item, this time from HMCS Iroquois. The postmark, C.F.P.O. 31) is dated (with the same caveat as before) December 10th (?) 1953. This was towards the end of her second tour of duty in Korean waters, and after the end of active hostilities. The question is the same as my previous posting: can anyone tell me where CFPO 31 was? Thanks a lot!

rgds
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Folks, the attached shows a cover from the RCN Tribal class destroyer HMCS Cayuga (return address on the reverse). If I'm reading the Canadian Base PO postmark correctly, it is dated 1st March 1951. This is during her first tour of duty in Korean waters. The book I have on Canadian military and naval postmarks covers only WW2. Therefore my question is: where was Canadian Base PO located? I have (flimsy) grounds for suspecting it was at Sasebo, but I may quite easily be mistaken. Many thanks.

rgds
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Hi, folks,

As you can see from the attached, I have a naval tombstone censor on a cover postmarked FPO 856 in February 1945. Proud confines himself to 'BLA' for this FPO. Can anyone fine-tune this attribution to a more specific location? If so, I would be most grateful if you can share it! :-)

If anyone can decipher the signature on the censor, that would be another approach I could take, but I fear it defeats me.

Many thanks!

All the best for 2023.

Nick

Chaps, attached are scans of an item apparently from the Greek naval vessel HHMS [i]Elli[/i]. The question I have is unrelated to postal history, only Greek naval history. You can see from the Alexandria b/s that it dates from August 1944. However, the first Greek ship named [i]Elli[/i] a light cruiser) was sunk by the Italian submarine [i]Delfino[/i] on 15th August 1940 (BEFORE the outbreak of hostilities between Greece and Italy) while she was anchored off the island of Tinos. The internet tells me the second ship named [i]Elli[/i] in the Greek navy was the Italian cruiser [i]Eugenio di Savoia[/i] which was given to Greece in 1947 by Italy as reparation. The conclusion is, of course, that there was no Greek naval vessel named [i]Elli[/i] between August 1940 and 1947. Except this cover strongly suggests otherwise.

The question, therefore, is: what vessel, or entity, carried the name HHMS [i]Elli[/i] between 1941 and 1947? Any ideas, folks?


Thanks
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Greetings, all,

As much as a point of interest to at least some of you (I hope), as a question from me: attached should be a scan of a WW2 Canadian naval item with what seems to be a rather unusual postmark (for naval mail), a s/r Sydney & Truro R.P.O. of February 9th 1944.

I've established that there is a Sydney on Cape Breton Island, and a Truro on the main Nova Scotia peninsula. The internet tells me there is, or, at least was, a railway connecting the two across the Canso Causeway. If that is correct, then would I be correct in thinking R.P.O. stands for Railway Post Office? If not, then feel free to tell me what it DOES stand for. Also, whatever the letters mean, would my use of the adjective 'unusual' be appropriate?

Many thanks for any thoughts you may care to share.

rgds
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Folks, the item shown in the attachments seems more or less straightforward, if somewhat esoteric in terms of postal history. However, the meaning of M.E.I. at the War Office is not known.  Does anyone have any ideas? I surmise the addressee was working in the Embassy in Moscow.

Many thanks!

Nick

Hi, all,

I assume it's an Australian port (for obvious reasons), but is that too easy/naive?

BTW, the pencil endorsement reads '20/11/41 Recd 24/11/41'.

Many thanks!

Nick

Folks, I've been passed a scan of an interesting cover, naval, WW2, by a fellow member. He's asking if the RELEASED BY NAVY CENSOR mark is of British or US origin. He has one view, and I have to confess that I'm inclined to the opposite view.

Would you care to share your thoughts (if any)?

Scan attached.

chrs
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Folks, I attach scans of the front and reverse of a very ordinary WW2 naval censored cover.  Or at least it WAS ordinary until it was re-directed to Cambridge. As you can see it was re-posted through Temporary Office No.2 on 17th December 1940.

I have two reasons for putting this on the Forum. One is that I've not encountered the combination of a naval censored item with a Temporary Office postmark before (even though it's only on re-direction, here), so I thought it may tickle your interest. The second reason is that I know nothing about these Temporary Offices. Presumably they were brought into operation to replace post offices/sorting centres that were rendered inoperable by bomb damage in the Blitz? Do we know where they were? The initial address here is to SW17 – the Tooting area of London, so presumably Temporary Office No.2 wasn't far away. Where was No. 1, and were there more?

Thanks a lot!
Nick

Folks, it occurs to me that Belgium's neutrality early in WW2 - and all the obligations that go with that status -  is usually forgotten. so I thought I'd show you this.

This is an item from Flying Officer C.M.Kempster of 21 Squadron in March 1940, interned in Belgium. He and his crew took off from Metz at 07h55 on 3rd January 1940 in a Blenheim I on a reconnaissance mission. They were attacked by a Hurricane (!), and survived. However, they were badly damaged by Me 109s near Aachen, after which they crash landed near Raeren in Belgium (still neutral at this time), just over the border from Aachen. One of the crew, AC1 Harris, was killed, but Kempster and the third crew member, Sgt Smith survived. They were interned in Terlaenen Camp, near Overyssche ca.20 kms SE of Brussels. They were released when the German offensive in the west started on 10th May.

(Data source is Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War by W.R. Chorley (the 1939-1940 volume))

I think this qualifies for our next Zoom meeting on the 18th, so I'll try and sneak it in there :-)

Nick

Following on from Tony's report and question about his intercepted Swedish item, here's the first of mine.

As you can see, it carries a Gibraltar 1d, and British 1d and 1/2d stamps, all cancelled with four strikes of a thick 8-bar mark. I suppose this may be a form of DA4, which Dr.Gould reports as used at Invergordon.

Overlying the (Gibraltar) stamp, there are two censor labels. The top one seems likely to be British, no.1035, but I'm not familiar with WW1 (civilian) labels. The obscured label may have been applied in Gibraltar – printed with large red script, part of which is OPENED BY. I can't see under the top label to make out the rest of the printing. I do not wish to lift the top label, obviously.

The censor mark is Gould's 2A13. It appears to be written by a Scandinavian – presumably Danish – to a family member. Sadly, there is no date available. If anyone has sufficient interest, the examining officer's name – or initials - are available, as you can see.

I don't have any questions, really. I've just put this up for interest, but if you have any (polite  :)) comments, feel free to make them.

I've another item from this correspondence which I'll add later.

chrs
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Folks, I have a question arising from Saturday's Zoom meeting. It comes from a guest, so I'm presenting this for him:

'Northern Patrol in WW1 was basically a blockade of the North Sea by the 10th Cruiser Squadron based out of Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. Alan Baker has confirmed that some of the ships had their own censor markings (Gould). Two Northern Patrol censor markings have been observed – both double ring, text in ring CENSORED / NORTHERN PATROL separated by ornaments, blank center. The earlier (24 mm dia.) was addressed to Aberdeen and has a London machine cancel dated Dec 9, 1915. The latter (32 mm dia.) was addressed to Surrey and has a FPO a (Fleet Mail Office) machine cancel dated May 25, 1917. Numerous questions need to be answered including: was ship size the determining factor in which ones did their own censoring, was mail from smaller ships collected and sent to London for censoring, were two censoring groups using different hammers or did the original one just wear out?'

Scan attached, by the way.

Obviously, I'll pass back to him any thoughts and/or comments you have.

Thanks a lot!

rgds
Nick

Chaps, I'm hoping one of you will have some knowledge of Australian FPOs in WW2. Attached is an item from the ocean-going tug HMAS Heros, postmarked with Australian FPO 094 on 22nd September 1944. Can anyone tell me where that FPO was located at that time, please?

Thanks a lot!

Nick

Folks, I have a letter (no cover, sadly) from the commanding officer of D Company, Hood Battalion, RND, from the Western Front in the summer of 1917. He writes (among other things, about which I hope to tell you in a future Journal) that '..... there is a general feeling that the war will soon be over  with the Boche badly beaten. Personally, one more attack with the Steadies will satisfy me.'

Presumably 'the Steadies' is a nickname. Can anyone confirm that? If so, what - or which - unit? The Hood Battalion, I would guess, but that is MERELY a guess.

Thanks a lot!
chrs
N

Captain Salmons was a Royal Marine officer deployed on Operation Agreement, a large scale raid on Axis-held Tobruk, on 14th September 1942. The illustrated item, and several more from his correspondence are the subject of a forthcoming article in the Journal. Operation Agreement was a disastrous operation, with the army and navy suffering heavy losses with little or no apparent benefit. Captain Salmons was one of the Marines embarked on the Tribal class destroyers HMS Sikh and HMS Zulu, part of the assault force. Both these vessels were lost during the operation. Captain Salmons was one of 576 survivors taken prisoner. With the help of other items from his correspondence, the forthcoming article (Autumn edition, I understand?) traces his travels in Italy, and then Germany as a guest of the Axis forces.

Anyway, the point of the post is that I'd never previously seen the return to sender label with the printing referring explicitly to the addressee being a prisoner of war in Italian hands - hence the posting here to give you a preview.

chrs
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Frank's posting the other day reminded me that I have this in my collection. Took a while to find it, but it was hiding in plain sight ....

Anyway: it's from Sub-Lt M.G.Chichester, RN (although he was promoted to Lieutenant wef 1st September 1939), aboard the destroyer HMS Imogen, 3DF, Western Approaches. She was lost 16th July 1940 after collision with the cruiser HMS Glasgow in fog in the Pentland Firth. He survived the incident and was posted to HMS Seaborn, wef 9th September 1940. This was the Fleet Air Arm station at a Canadian air base at Dartmouth in Nova Scotia.

He appears to have overlooked the censorship requirement and he has had to open and re-seal his own letter – see the second image for the reverse.

chrs
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Sent from Scotland (FPO 676) in November 1941 to Lt.D.B.Ross, RCNVR, apparently on the cruiser HMS Cornwall. 'Cornwall' has been deleted and 'Botlea' has been inserted. HMS Botlea was a Q ship. She was a coal burning tramp steamer, 5000 tons, and 7 knots. When war broke out, she was taken over by the RN and fitted out as a classic 'Q' Ship. (see https://www.navyhistory.org.au/tag/hms-botlea/). I have yet to find confirmation he was ever aboard HMS Botlea.

Possibly at this point it went to the Fleet Mail Office in central London, from where it appears to have gone to Halifax in Nova Scotia. It is likely that it was from here that it was forwarded to HMCS Mahone. This was a minesweeper, commissioned into the RCN in September 1941, and assigned to the Western Local scort Force (ie Atlantic), based in Halifax NS. It is not understood why it received the Canadian naval censor, dated in June 1942.....

chrs
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Folks, I'm puzzled by this one. The sender and the censor are in the April 1943 Navy List as serving aboard HMS Kenkora. However, no such vessel, or establishment by that name is listed. An internet search has drawn a blank, as has Bill Garrard's list of shore bases, and no such name appears in Ray Sturtivant's FAA compendium. Also, 'HMS 716' means nothing to both myself and Mr.Google.

Any thoughts?

chrs
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No one else seems to be posting today, so you can have two from me.

This is from a civilian (apparently), but the return address is c/o HM Naval Office, Colombo. This is an interesting air mail rate, 6 Rupees, when the normal rate at this time (1940-41) seems to have been 1 Rupee. I think 1 Rupee was equivalent to 1/3d, so 6 Rs would be 7/6d. The routing endorsement is via Chungking, so it would probably have gone via Hong Kong, then by the Pan Am China Clipper trans-Pacific to the US. How much further it went by air can't really be readily determined, but for 7/6d, I'd want it to go all the way: trans-US, trans-Atlantic (to Lisbon?) and thence to the UK. Sadly it has no transit marks. The deletion of the air mail etiquette is odd, and suggests it did NOT go all the way by air, but we don't know where the deletion was applied.

Are any of you air mail experts who can cast some light here?

chrs
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Good morning, all,

This is written and censored by a Polish officer, serving with the Free French Navy, and posted through the British Army Postal Service in Syria (FPO 61). The return address is c/o Senior French Naval Officer, Beirut.

chrs
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