Cover of The day - 25 March 2020

[Peter Harvey]

Here is my cover of the day, hopefully others will post some items today and encourage those not yet using the forum to do so?

WW2 Cover posted with Algerian stamps to Scotland cancelled with the French Navy DUNQUESE datestamp 2-1-44, opened and re-sealed by the civilian censor on arrival in the UK.

In late 1944 the Dunquese which had been engaged in transport missions between Casablanca, Gibraltar, Oran, Greenock and Cherbourg, Oran and Toulon, was laid up for a short while in Casablanca, likely where this cover was posted.

It looks like the civilian censor re-inked the address after applying their label and added the 11.C, not sure why/where this was applied.

Peter

[Chris Grimshaw]

Hi Peter

Nice item,  not posting much this week as back at work..... 

Classed as a "Key Worker"

Chris

[Howard Weinert]

Here is a postcard with hidden meaning:

A postcard written at the US naval base in Invergordon, Scotland and sent to Denver by Jack McCleery [1892-1940], a sailor on the USS Olympia. The card, which arrived in Denver on 1 December 1918, is endorsed "Sailor's Mail" and has a censor mark of the US Naval Reserve Force. The circular postmark with eight bars was applied to incoming naval mail to ensure that it could enter the British postal system free of charge. The date on the front and the inscription on the back were added by the addressee. The message reads, "Regards from 'yours truly' now of Scotland and formerly of Russia." The Olympia, which had been the flagship of Commodore Dewey at the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898, took part in the American intervention in North Russia in 1918, and was the only US warship in North Russian waters during that year. She left Murmansk on 13 November 1918 and arrived at Invergordon on the 18th. On the 21st she sailed for Portsmouth and spent the rest of the year in dry dock there. McCleery, who worked for the Navy until his death, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.