RAF IN SOUTH AFRICA

[Ross Debenham]

Attached please find a Air Mail Letter Card post marked Westlake, South Africa. The first scan is of the front and the second scan is of the return address of the sender. The sender was in a transit camp to somewhere. My questions are
1)  What does the CFCF in the return address denote?
2)  What was the location of APO 7370 in 1944/45 the period I believe the AMLC sent.

[Michael Dobbs]

Ross

I don't know if I can help or hinder - but the only references to CFCF I have come across are as follows:

CFCF Central Flow Control Facility (of the National Weather Service)
Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Alphabets of Aviation: A Guide to Contemporary and Historical Terms Found in Aviation Literature by Anne Millbrooke, 2008

CFCF Central flow control facility (FAA 1)
The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary by Bill Gunston OBE,FRAeS, 2004
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b40b/fdaa51341985bc77d30609c7de41a50e02c6.pdf

A number of Captain-class frigates were configured to operate as "Coastal Forces Control Frigates" (CFCF)
Taken from:
Donald. The Captain Class Frigates in the Second World War. p. 31.
https://www.revolvy.com/page/Coastal-Forces-of-the-Royal-Navy?cr=1

The Royal Navy Captain-class frigate HMS Rutherford (K558) underway during World War II. She served as a Coastal Forces Control Frigate (CFCF) in 1944 and 1945.
https://infogalactic.com/info/Coastal_Forces_of_the_Royal_Navy

I don't know what Coastal Forces Control Frigates did and your man was in the RAF not RN!

Mike  :(

[Ross Debenham]

Thanks Mike, it's a bit of a mystery. From the rather extensive collection of mail from this Flight Sergeant he was transitting between RAF Collondale, near East London and RAF Driftsands, near Port Elizabeth on a regular basis. Who knows.