RAF East Africa World War 2

[Ross Debenham]

Attached is a cover I recently acquired the attached envelope from EAAPO 2 to Northern Ireland. I believe it was posted on 6II42, but what makes it interesting is the "ROYAL AIR FORCE POST OFFICE EAST AFRICA" cachet stamped on the front envelope. Can any of the RAF experts out there give me any information on the cachet.

[Nick Colley]

Well, in my experience, that cachet is not particularly unusual in itself, but it's nice to see it on a bilingual honour cover. I don't recall seeing that combination. I suspect you may be hoping for more details in terms of period of use, to what mail it was applied, and so on and so forth ? I fear I have to disappoint you there: I have no information - I, for one, am not aware of any studies in those respects. (Sorry !)

chrs
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[Ross Debenham]

Thanks Nick, I feared as much. I agree with you about the use of the bi-lingual cover. Why we are on the subject of East African covers have you seen any examples of the APO2 post marker with the "C" control slug which I believe may have been used by the RAF.

[Nick Colley]

Oh, really ? I wasn't aware of that. I'll have to look. Will let you know in due course.

chrs
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[Ross Debenham]

Thanks Nick

[Nick Colley]

Well, Ross, I have discovered I have only a handful of RAF censors with APO 2 - most of my EA RAF items have other APO numbers. None of them have the C control slug. I don't suppose that gets you anywhere at all, does it ? Sorry  :(

chrs
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[Nick Guy]

Hello Ross

I'm posting a couple of scans (scan0006 and scan0007) of EA APO 2 index C with military (as opposed to RAF) censors' marks.  In addition the censor's rank on scan0006 is clearly 2/Lt.  I cannot claim the same for the officer self-censoring his letter to his wife in scan0007 but in another example from the same correspondence (scan0008 - index A) it is clearly Capt.  I'll have to post scan0007 and scan00008 separately to keep within the size limit.

Regarding the RAF frank I'm an East Africa enthusiast rather than an RAF expert, but I too have not found it particularly unusual.  It mostly turns up without date stamps and seems to have been accepted as sufficient postmark, but I've one or two where covers did acquire datestamps, all earlier than yours.  I've also stampless RAF censored EA APO items with dates starting from mid-1942 which do not have the RAF frank.  This is a similar pattern to the Army where stampless On Active Service mail initially always had a military frank but its use is dropped later.  In "civil life" the East African Postal Administration went in for Postal Franks (with that wording) for all sorts of officials sending OHMS mail free so if other Imperial Army Postal Services did not have similar marks I imagine that someone in East Africa decided that the Civil Post Office's practice should be carried over - but that's speculation'

Regards
Nick Guy

[Nick Guy]

scan0007 - index C (see previous post)

[Nick Guy]

Scan0008 - Captain Falconer (see previous post)

[Ross Debenham]

Thanks Nick, I now agree with you that the "C" slug was not exclusively used by the RAF. As I am 99% sure that the 113 censor was used by the military hospital in Kenya it appears that the stamp with the C slug was used by all services. Once again thanks for the help.