Unknown hand stamp

[Colin Tabeart]

I have received the following from a non-member. Can anyone help explain the stamp please? "I am in need of a little help or guidance please as this is out of my area of 'expertise'. The stamps are cancelled with a straight line PAQUEBOT but the purple circular handstamp has what looks like 'STAFF OFFICER' around the top, under which is straight line 'Intelligence' and under that is the date 9 May 1944. Then it gets indistinct. On the next line I can make out 'Royal' and the a down stroke (possibly Navy or Naval?) and 'rs' at the end - (Is this 'Royal Navy Censors' or is that too easy?). At the base of the mark, the curved wording appears to start with 'H'.  This handstamp is further annotated in manuscript 'censored' and the censors initials."

[Ross Debenham]

Colin
I hope this can be of some help as regards to this situation. After studying forces censorship for some time I find the use of shall we say unofficial censor markers is unusual but not unknown. For instance I have an envelope from a member of the 1st South African Anti Aircraft Brigade en route from South Africa to Mombasa in 1940 and censored using Department of Defence OFFICIAL FREE hand stamp and manuscript "Censored M Klein 12/12/40" in green. Admittedly it was also hit with the EA B1 BASE CENSOR marker, unaccompanied by any censor signature  upon arrival in Kenya. It was stamped South African Army PO 2 handstamp as well.
I also have an envelope from East African Army Post Office 2 cover with the dated 31 March, 1942 addressed to South Africa with the only cachet on the envelope a circular 'INSPECTOR DEFENCE STORES AND ACCOUNTS with signature and rank in manuscript. I have seen other examples of such an envelope so I suppose it all depended on who you were as to how much censorship was applied

[Colin Tabeart]

Thanks Ross - will pass it on to the enquirer.
Colin

[Colin Tabeart]

Gentlemen, I rather suspect the third line of the stamp reads "Royal Engineers". Any thoughts from army experts on whether there was a RE detachment in Nigeria in 1944, and if so, where? Or how to find out?
Colin

[Alan Baker]

Having blown up the image as far as I can without it becoming too blurry, the first letter of the second word looks like an "M" and a third word ends in "ers" or "ors". Any help?

The addressees were a firm which imported palm oil etc from their Nigerian subsidiary. They were part of the Unilever Group and the imported material was used to make soap products.

[Graham Mark]

This cover was marked "Consignee Mail", that means it was correspondence or documents connected to some item(s) of freight on the manifest of the ship.
This letter could have been inspected and censored at Apapa or some other Nigerian Port, or upon reaching a UK port.
The Paquebot marking applied in UK is no help as it is a generic type.
I would expect the word at the bottom of the circle to be a place but I cannot think of a Nigerian port beginning with H, no a likely port in Britain.  The usual shipping line was Elder Dempster and its subsidiaries and their home port was Liverpool.  If it is a port it is a short name.  But could it be simply H.Q.?
The Civil Censorship Group have recorded a number of handstamps which might be found on consignee mail but none have anything like "Intelligence" in their wording.
You will have to ask the original enquirer to find a cover with a more complete handstamp!
Graham

[Colin Tabeart]

Thanks Graham. Like I have told the enquirer "you can't with them all".

Colin