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Despite the hot sunny weather, the Football World Cup and Wimbledon Tennis Championships, not to mention annual holiday season, we still managed to attract some 12 members (two more than last month !) to the meeting to view a wide range of material on display. John Leathes started the afternoon with a display on the merchant submarine Deutschland 1916-17. The vessel made two voyages, but the first carried no mail (officially) only vital products. The display featured items associated mainly with the second voyage, including a selection of special insurance stamps and insurance certificates issued for packets and valuables carried to the USA. The third voyage was cancelled as the US had entered the war, although John displayed postcards and other items associated with the proposed sailing. Our President, Peter O'Keeffe, was next (as an avid football fan he timed it that if he left early he could get home to see the second half of the England-v-Portugal game !). His display showed how British mail was treated during the very early period of WW1 soon after the introduction of free postage for HM troops on 28 August 1914. The display illustrated through postcards and covers how mail was treated during this early period. Almost all was censored with the Army circular censored mark of the time. It included some pre-embarkation mail as well. Neil Russell showed items associated with the 2nd Australian Imperial Force in Malaya up until the surrender to the invading Japanese forces. Altogether there were four FPOs and two BAPOs associated with the Force. The display also showed the alternative arrangements made when the FPO/BAPOs ran out of postage stamps - which they all did eventually. The material displayed also included the special Air Mail Letters Cards printed specially for use in Malaya. Michael Goodman showed two sheets on the Crimean War then 13 sheets on various aspects to do with British Forces in Egypt. These included the pre-FPO period of 1882, 1885 Sudan card with Indian FPO and Egyptian Postal Stationery used through the FPO, 1898 Military PO Alexandria as well as Military Pos 1906-08 period and skeleton APO postmarks of Cairo, Kantara and Mustapha. Peter Burrows showed a variety of recent acquisitions, including a poster for the civilian airgraph service issued by the Canadian Post Office, operative from 8 July 1940 until 8 June 1945; V-mail form issued by the American Red Cross in Italy in 1945; a Christmas Programme of events for RAF Kankesanturai in 1945; leaflet on the Mediterranean Lines of Communication (MEDLOC) leave scheme and a series of unused letter sheets issued at the Quinte International Airshow in Canada June 1999 for individuals to send to the Canadian forces on various UN/NATO operations world-wide (incidentally if anyone has any further information on the validity of these letter sheets Peter would be interested to hear from you). Peter High produced a display of radio messages found on many US naval ships in naval breakers yards. Those on display related to hospital ships and Peter associated them with photographs and other ephemera relating to the ships in question. He also showed a photograph of the USS Republic, decked out as a hospital ship, but in the event not used as such. US Hospital Ships featured included Louis A Milne; Blanche F Sigman; Frances Y Slager and St Olaf. Michael Dobbs showed three pages of censored and not censored cachets used on mail in Poland during the Martial Law period 1981/82; he also showed a number of sheets relation to international organisations in the former Yugoslavia (Canadians as part of UNPROFOR; Swiss as part of OSCE; US as part of SFOR) and lastly a number of sheets on Netherlands FPOs (in Germany; anniversary in Netherlands; and part of MFO in Sinai - including a Veldpost bag label). Hugh Shaw displayed mainly British and German forgeries and propaganda labels of WW1/2 period. Included was a special sheet printed in 1945 for the Brussels exhibition of the work of forgery printers. Also showed were Allied anti-nazi labels; the Burma forged "peacock" overprints; an Italian stamp that appeared to show Hitler snarling at a startled Mussolini and the forged Feldpost air stamp. Alistair Kennedy showed Iraqi covers posted during the period 1997-2002 depicting propaganda postage stamps of the period, including 1997 Anniversary of the 1995 Referendum; 2001 support for Palestine and also Anniversary of the Revolution, Ba'ath Party and President's birthday and 2002 anniversary of aggression on Iraq. Lastly Albert Coles showed a number of Australian Cinderella items. They included the 1916 "Delandre" Australian Red Cross labels, various patriotic war labels and labels that related to the sinking of the Emden. Also WW1 War Loan Bond publicity stamps; Lady Gowry Red Cross labels, sold from special tables (not over the counter) in Australian Pos; Dig for Victory and Buy War Bonds labels and lastly labels publicising the ANZAC Club in New York. |