Prisoner of War Mail handstamp

[John Cranmer]

I have just got this 1942 cover from Canada to Switzerland.  It is unusal in that the POWs name is at the top left and that here is some info about him on the net. He was the only one of the four crew members of a Hudson which was shot down on the 30th of May 1942 to survive.  It is also interesting that the censor (C 7) had to use two different types of label to fully seal the opened side.  I guess he did not want to cover the stamp with the paper label.

[attach id=6727]Temp_0008.jpg[/attach]

I have not seen this large bilingial hand stamp before and so far cannot find anything about it on line.

I am also puzzled by the red date stamp at the bottom which is five months after the Toronto post mark.

Any suggestions will be most welcome.

John Cranmer

[John Cranmer]

I have been sent this image from another forum.  It has the same sort of red number and date marking at the bottom.  It is from Gernmany directly to Switzerland. This apparently shows that the red marking was applied by the Red Cross as there is no other common link between the two covers.  The first cover I posted should not have passed throgh German held territory in May 1942.

Out of interest, it is well out of my collecting field, is the double SS a censor mark from the SS ?

[attach id=6729]20230530_red-cross-date.jpg[/attach] 

John

[Ian Muchall]

John,
I have a cover with the bilingual 'Prisoner of War/ Kriegsgefangen Post'  sent from Canada to a Canadian officer who was interned in Sweden. This was censored by the Germans as well. He was in Sweden for 6 months before arriving home in September 1944.