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A chance for members to show anything Forces related, be it a theme or a hotchpotch of items. With a number of our 'regulars' missing due, no doubt, to the holiday season it was nevertheless a creditable turnout and almost everyone had something to display. The title was observed more in the breach than the observance with members ability to count 15 left us in no doubt who we would not wish to be our next Hon Treasurer (and that included your President) ! Our commiserations to Albert Coles who mixed up his meetings and brought along the Pichi Richi Railway Preservation Society Cinderella material (time was such that he was not able to even show us his 'wrong' display). Keith Tranmer started off the displays with an interesting display telling the story of the siege of Venice in 1848/49. This followed the murder of the Naval Commander of the Arsenal and led to the eventual capitulation and occupation of Venice by the Austrians following an attempt to gain independence. The items shown formed part of an archive that had been rescued by the late Frederik Patka following a decision to throw them out by the authorities as being uninteresting. Nick Colley showed a mixed display of RAF-related items including mail from Greece, Mediterranean, Balkans and Middle East. Included was an example of Field Post Office 195 in Greece, noted as "not seen" by Proud and an extremely interesting and rare item from the Brazilian air force John Daynes together with fellow member Owen Cock and others from the Gibraltar Study Circle recently paid a visit to Gibraltar and provided a philatelic display as part of the territory's 300th Anniversary celebrations. Through the good officers of the Director Postal & Courier Services John was able to visit the two FPOs and obtain covers as well as photographs of the FPOs. This proved to be a most interesting display of postal paraphernalia to be found in a typical Forces Post Office. In addition he showed a couple of sheets featuring cachets and covers from the ships that made up the NATO Straights of Gibraltar (STROG) Task Force as part of Operation ACTIVE ENDEAVOUR. Lastly, hot of the press, he showed new developments in UK postal mechanisation with postage labels printed from one of three machines available for public use - interestingly unlike the labels printed in Post Offices those addressed to a BFPO had the letters HM displayed rather than the usual 1st or 2nd. Well over the 15 sheets but superb recent happenings relating to Forces mail. Mike Goodman provided a display of covers and cards showing cachets used at various UK military hospitals during WW1. Included were 1st Southern General Hospital, Beaufort War Hospital, 5th London General Hospital and Royal Herbert Hospital Woolwich. Peter O'Keeffe showed air mail letter cards illustrating the many varieties, shades, printings, etc. He had queries on many of these which were suitably answered from the floor - example: why Official Paid ? This was initially because the Egyptian Government refused to accept British stamps. However, before they were brought into use the Egyptians had given way on this. Frank Schofield provided us with some of his latest findings from British Forces in Italy during WW1, including the earliest recording of FPO L1. He also had an item addressed to the brother of our founder (Colonel Guy Crouch - see Newsletter 252 (Summer 2002) for related items) posted three days after he had been killed and bearing a large M cachet (M = missing ?) before being returned to sender "killed in action". John Leathes displayed "Deutschland" submarine mail of WW1. This was the aborted third commercial voyage to the US and the first on which mail was to have been carried. There are 14 (possibly 15) small German censor cachets and John has managed to acquire 13 of these through many, many years of collecting. The voyage was announced on Christmas Day 1916 but on 7 February 1917 it was cancelled due to deteriorating relations with the USA and all mail was returned to sender. Jim Hamlin put up a selection of Italian military mail, including the take over of Albania, Italian occupation of Greece with a Greek FPO and Italian POW mail and latterly occupation by the Germans with Italian forces "interned" as a result. Alistair Kennedy displayed material relating to D-Day in recognition of the recent 60th Anniversary events. Included were US material from the assault training centre at Woolacombe, Devon; pre-D-Day mail during the security period and items showing the various addresses used by British troops in Normandy: initially APO England then BWEF for a brief period and finally BLA; and items from 8 BAPO in Normandy. Michael Dobbs showed a mix of British FPO material including the post-war Krag machines (FPOs 1-3 & 5) and some of the Universal machine replacements as well as a selection of Forces machines that used the "AIDS" slogan in the mid-1980's. He also showed FPO 111 on a NAAFI letter form from a soldier returning from Egypt to UK for demobilisation where he described the journey and Transit Camp at Toulon: "the camp is a sea of mud" - Bill Collingwood remarked that when he undertook the reverse journey two or three years later it was still a sea of mud ! Finally Keith Lillywhite showed a few Kriegsmarine items including the hospital ships "Berlin" (Hospital Ship A) and the "Robert Ley" (Hospital Ship B) - converted but not used as such. |
who had a squadron in Italy under USAF control. Peter Burrows showed his usual hotchpotch of items with Boer war censor marks, 
Australian Imperial Force forms of WW1, Australian YMCA letter sheets and Naval censored items including a fine "PASSED BY NAVAL CENSOR / E.D.O. CROMARTY ." cachet with the date 4 APR 1940 all in red. EDO stands for Extended Defence Officer and is believed to have something to do with mine defences.