Mail census WW11

[momat]

Have just received a bundle of letters written by my Uncle to his Mother while he was serving in the Army.
He died in action so these are a treasure I never thought I would see.
There are no dates on them and the postmarks are illegible but each one has a Censor number on the front ,so I wonder if the numbers can be dated ?

Cheers,

[StewL]

HI Maureen
I am not sure if the numbers mean anything apart from identifying the censor.
More often than not service personnel were acutely aware of what they could include in a letter home and what not to include, especially navy personnell (ship movements etc). Families also became aware of what to include in letters overseas.

[Currie]

That’s great Maureen.

We’re lucky that we have had things like old letters passed down to us. I pity our descendants, as all we’ll be passing down in the main will be telephone calls, emails, text messages, and the like, and that means there’ll be nothing.

Any sign of clues in the body of the letter or is it all personal stuff. If his rank was there and you knew when he was promoted? The trouble with wartime letters is that the clues we hope to find there are also the clues that would have been beneficial to the enemy. You could have a wander through the links on this page to see if there’s anything useful there. http://www.postalcensorship.com/

You sound as if you have the original envelopes. The people most into trying to read illegible postmarks are possibly stamp collectors. I haven’t had anything to do with that hobby since I was a kid, but maybe there’s a clue in the stamp, if there is one, if it’s overprinted of perforated in some way, or of a particular type.

If there are stamps, and you think it would be of any use, you could try taking high definition scans and post the images somewhere so that others could give an opinion. There are even Forums of stamp fanatics who may be able to sort something out. http://www.stampboards.com/index.php?si ... d2a001306c

On television someone trying to solve a crime would probably be waving an infra-red or ultra-violet light or something over it to see if it made the postmark any clearer.

Hope there’s something useful there.

All the best,
Alan

[momat]

Hi Currie,

They are all aerograms ( unfortunately crumbling away) which I have had photocopied.
I am slowly reading them and transferring the text to my PC for safekeeping.
There are mention of batalions and places he saw but I will have to read through them closely to pinpoint time zones.
On the front of each Aerogram is a Censor's numbered seal which I was hoping were issued in numeric order.
Some references within the letters will give me rough dates as they refer to events within the family that I can link to.
The poignancy of these letters is that my Mother and I ( I was just a Baby / Toddler) are refered to in each one .My Father and three of his Brothers were all in the Army during WW11.

Cheers,

[StewL]

I am not sure if the stamp would be any help. It is my understanding that often it was a stamp from the home country that was used by servicemen when sending letters home.
Of course there could be occasions when they would use a local stamp, but it was usually much cheaper to use the country of origin stamp as it was normally the lowest postage cost (standard letter).
As most letters sent to servicemen would go to a central mail destination. With his name rank and regiment or ship identifying who the recipient should be.
My thoughts are based on my own experiences in the service, and I am pretty sure they did not change from WWII. The only difference now is that they have the "benefit" of the internet etc.

[momat]

Aerograms were prepaid and the stamps are part of the front page
3d postage .
What I am interested in is the CENSOR'S numbered seal on the front of each letter as they may be a clue to place and time.
Cheers,

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings Maureen.

Just checking that the letters you have were Aerograms NOT Airgraph Message letters, as the method of processing was totally different. In the latter case the letter, on speciall forms, was photographed for sending to New Zealand, then printed out for posting within New Zealand.

Unfortunately I've used up my allocated Gallery space, so I can not post an example to show the difference.

Alan SHARP.

[momat]

Just checking that the letters you have were Aerograms NOT Airgraph Message letters, as the method of processing was totally different. In the latter case the letter, on speciall forms, was photographed for sending to New Zealand, then printed out for posting within New Zealand.

The letters in discussion have NO relationship to New Zealand.
Nowhere was this mentioned in my post.
They are AIR MAIL LETTER CARDS ,what I presume became Aerograms in later times.
They were sent from war zones to GREAT BRITAIN.

Just because my profile states that I live in New Zealand don't presume I am a New Zealander.

[Currie]

Hello Maureen,

There is a book on WW2 censor marks but it looks like it’s just a collector’s thing and possibly wouldn’t help you at all. Probably not the sort of thing you would find in your local library. http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookD ... or%2Bmarks

This seems to be the type of letter you’re talking about. http://www.warcovers.co.uk/shop/1941-AM ... -p-m..html

This page is interesting. Civilian mail that was censored was resealed with paper tape, whereas military mail seems to have been handed in unsealed, so that it could be quickly read, sealed, and stamped if necessary. http://www.linns.com/howto/refresher/ce ... ourse.aspx

All the best,
Alan

[momat]

Thanks Alan,
The warcover link is identical to the letters I have.
Cheers,