Unrecorded RAF BLA wrapper?

[Jim Mackay]

The attached appears to be a newspaper wrapper postmarked FPO 792 on 22 August 1945 sent to Lancashire after being censored by R7/453. It is preprinted 'On Active Service' and 'Particulars of Sender: No, Rank and Name.

At the top can be seen 'RAF BLA' in small print. A word has been inscribed in pencil 'Det???d' and, strangely, the address has been written twice  in two different hands.

I cant find any reference to Newspaper Wrappers in John Daynes' 'Wartime Postal Stationery'.

Any thoughts?

Regards
Jim Mackay

[Nick Colley]

Hi, Jim,

The pencil m/s appears to read Detmold, a town in Germany about 25kms NE of Paderborn. This item is the same date and postmark as the recordings of R7/453 in our records. However, the records we inherited make no mention of the singular wrapper with which you have presented us. It's a nice little item - worth a short note in the Journal as an addition to 'Wartime Postal Stationery'?

chrs
Nick

[Michael Dobbs]

Jim

FPO 792 was issued to 3 GHQ Postal Unit on 31 January 1944; this unit served the various FPOs associated with HQ 21st Army Group.  At present I am not able to narrow it down any further.

Mike

[Jim Mackay]

Many thanks for your helpful replies, gents.

I'm surprised that an officially printed stationery item like this was deemed necessary by the RAF BLA for out bound newspapers. Can't have been much demand.

Jim

[Michael Dobbs]

Jim

It does seem unusual, not come across this before.  Strange that there is no RAF Form No showing.  I wonder if this was produced by one of the non-military organisations supporting British Forces?  Once I get started on going back to The National Archives at Kew I will have a look at various RAF-related files to see if there is any mention of this wrapper.

Mike

[Peter Harvey]

This would be worth a discussion with Peter Burrows, his normal response to such questions is 'I already have 4, or 6, or 10..... seriously Peter may have recorded these and might help out.

Peter Harvey

[Michael Dobbs]

Peter - good suggestion!  I have now emailed Peter with a scan of the wrapper and asked if he has any knowledge of these.
I will report back in due course!

Mike  :D

[Michael Dobbs]

I have received the following response from Peter Burrows:

[color=maroon]I have not seen this wrapper before

It was likely printed by a group for its newspaper, not by RAF Command[/color]

Mike  :)

[Ian Muchall]

Guys,
I am not too surprised that a wrapper was produced locally in 2TAF as there were weekly papers issued by the RAF in Germany after the war. So it follows that someone came up with the idea of a wrapper. There won't be many examples still around. Ido have a copy of a newspaper issued by 2TAF in 1945.
Ian