Addressee POW Returned to Canada

[John Cranmer]

This is a letter addressed to a Canadian POW in Germany postmarked 8 March  1945 with a straight line ADDRESSEE RETURNED TO CANADA cachet.  Is there any infomation as to where this cachet would have been applied.  I assume that it was at one of the main FPOs in Germany but was there a special department responsible for these items.

John

[Michael Dobbs]

John

I am not aware of any process amongst the British Postal Units in Germany, or even the BAPO / ZPD from my searches in the various unit war diaries.  I wonder if it was dealt with by the Home Postal Centre in London?

Mike

[Peter Harvey]

Hi John,

I don't think this would have even reached Germany. The logic would have been mail sent via London, sorted with POW mail in London, cachet applied and returned to Canada.

POW mail was not normally handed through the FPO - so if this had gone to Germany would have gone London - IRC - Germany.

Peter

[John Cranmer]

Thanks for the thoughts.  I suspect Peter may be correct. 

I did wonder about this possibility but thought that the logistics of collecting all the POW names and sorting the letters accordingly would prove very difficult but perhaps not.  It is a shame there are no return dates on the cover which may have thrown more light onto the subject.

John