Seychelles WWII

[Tony Warren]

APO 81, Seychelles WWII ?
I have two Seychelles stamps - SG 136 3c orange and SG138 9c grey-blue with the above postmark
They have clear cancels showing "APO 81" in the base of the circle. I was not aware of a military presence on the Seychelles during WW2.
On reading an article in the January 2017 Gibbons Monthly there was a paragraph relating to forces addresses and cancellations during WW2. This says the army used APO 890 cancellation on mail. However these two clearly show APO 81 with a date of 5 VIII 44.
Can anyone shed any light on this matter.The stamps are SG 136ab 3c orange and SG138ab 9c grey-blue. As both stamps show the same cancel I assume they both came from the same envelope, although not knowing the postal rates of the time I cannot be more accurate.

[Michael Dobbs]

Tony

I have read the article in GSM (January 2017) to which you refer - however, I have read it as APO 890 being the address used by the Army, [u][i]not[/i][/u] a postal cancellation: "The air contingent used the address Section Q RAF Ceylon while the Army used APO 890 ..."  APO numbers were used as temporary addresses (some not so temporary) for drafts or units going overseas.  For background information on Army Post Office numbers please refer to my article in Journal 274 (Winter 2007) [available through the Journal archive].

Having said all of that, I don't have any substantial information to offer on the use of the APO 890 address - sorry !!

Mike  :(

[Tony Warren]

Thanks Mike, will investigate further.

[Frank Schofield]

Tony

Any chance of a scan of the two postmarks please

Frank Schofield

[Ross Debenham]

Without seeing a scan of the post mark I feel that the APO 81 was East African Army Post Office 81 which was located at Port Reitz air base, nr Mombasa in Kenya. Although there was no Post Office in the Seychelles the air force did frequent patrols to the Seychelles and on one of these trips no doubt picked up the mail and took it to Port Reitz where it was processed and sent on its way Covers have previously been seen with Seychelles post marked using East African Army Post Office post mark.

[Tony Warren]

Thanks Frank and Ross - will try.

Tony

[Nick Guy]

Tony

Can I suggest

Military censor markings,1939-1945, and related air mail services (I.O.S.C. Seychelles, no.9.)
Fitton, KB.  Indian Ocean Study Circle, June 1993

Beyond what is  specified in the title, it deals with the East African APOs that handled Seychellois mail and the Indian, East African and RAF elements stationed on or calling there.  If it is no longer in print, I notice our library holds a copy.

Regards

Nick

[Tony Warren]

Managed to get pic of the stamps, scan not available hope this helps


Tony

[Frank Schofield]

Tony

Thanks for the scans, they confirm the information that Ross posted earlier

Frank Schofield

[Ross Debenham]

What a pity somebody soaked them off the envelope. Would have been a rare and interesting cover.

[Nick Colley]

Yes, concur with what Ross wrote on February 2nd. It's more or less the same conclusion I've arrived at over the last 30-odd years of collecting RAF mail - including from East Africa.  ;)

rgds
N

[Tony Warren]

Thanks for all your help guys.

Tony

[akennedy]

Many years ago there was correspondence in the philatelic press (probably Stamp Collecting) arising because a writer thought APO 890 was a postmark, not realising it was a postal address.

Alistair