EA APO 84

[Nick Guy]

According to the List of Offices in the History of the East African Army Postal Service by Stuart Rossiter, edited by E B Proud and published posthumously by Proud-Bailey Co Ltd, this postmark was one of the six additional numbered postmarks (84-89) used at East African APO 2 at Nairobi.   In the list of offices for Chapter 6, Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, APO 84 is stated to be a stationary office at Mombasa.  Harry Henning in East Africa: World War II (published 1996 by the East Africa Study Circle, ISBN 0-9515865-2-1) comments that "APO 84-89 were also used at Nairobi" but Harry's was a much broader work with a greatly simplified report of the East African APOs.  I've always understood that the Nairobi location is the correct one, but it would be good to have confirmation.

Thanks

Nick Guy

[Ross Debenham]

Nick
I believe that the location of these post offices is up in the air. I personally have a cover from EA APO 87 with a EAB6 censor marker on it that according to the limited resources i have read was used in Mogadishu. I believe these post offices were also clearing houses so to speak for smaller locations all over the East African Command, such as the Seychelles.

Ross D

[Peter Harvey]

Nick,

I have handled many EA APO covers over many years and to be honest have on many occasion doubted locations in the Proud publication. Ross makes the valid point that many EA APO officers appear to have acted as clearing stations for mail from many locations, covers are then often confused further with transit date stamps often onwards to final locations.

Difficult to tie the locations down exactly without the letters contents as a clue.

Regards Peter

[Nick Guy]

Ross, Peter

Many thanks for your comments.  It is sad that Stuart Rossiter was unable to see his work to completion.

I am afraid that I do not think that even clear identifications of locations/units (which if censorship was working properly presumably should not have happened - though I have examples of a few exceptions), would be  definitive at least in regard of the possible clearing house/supplementary base office canceller usages since APO 2 (Nairobi Base Office, and I think that is an identification that is unlikely to be challenged) cancelled mail from quite distant locations - I have, for example, APO 2 on Sudanese stamps and I have a suspicion that some mail was not cancelled at the point it entered the APS but went to Nairobi. As far as EA.B6 is concerned, Harry Henning notes "reported used in 1943 in Mogadishu, Italian Somaliland, but it has also been seen used from May to July 43 at EA APO 55 & 57 (both Moshi, Tanganyika) and at EA APO 85 (Nairobi).  Later usage has been noted in April 1945 from EA APO 68 (Dar-es-Salaam)."  Do we have any indication whether there would be more than one handstamp of the same design?

One indication of what we have (and what was lost) is in BEA: The Bulletin of the East Africa Study Circle (which Rossiter edited) of February 1983 - the issue in production he died in December 1982.  It notes that he, using documents released at the PRO, had been researching WW2 in EA for 10 years and that "a definitive book was at the typing stage when illness brought work to a (hopefully temporary) standstill."  Sadly it was not temporary.  There are then some notes from him in response to a query in the course of which he states "I have long come to the conclusion that cancellers APO 87, 88 and 89 were put into service by Base APO either in a section of APO 2 itself or, more likely, at the Air Distribution Centre on Nairobi (Eastleigh) Airport."  He justifies this because they are not recorded as APOs with a separate existence and because of their use as transit marks on mail to and from many destinations.  The (published) book based on his unfinished manuscript seems to be going beyond what he was confident of at the time of his death so I was hoping for an indication of independent verification - in vain, it seems.  It rather looks as though that's it unless someone is able to do another ten years work in the PRO.

Nick Guy