Second World War Army Postal Services (1939-45)

Introduction

Between the wars the Royal Engineers (Postal Section), or Army Postal Service (APS), had shrunk back from an organisation of over 7,000 personnel to its pre-First World War establishment of approximately 300 personnel.

A postal unit was deployed with the British Army of the Rhine between 1918-1929 and in conjunction with the Royal Air Force (RAF) (and later civil airline companies) pioneered the development of international air mail services

During the Irish Civil War (1921-25) Field Post Offices (FPO) were established in Ireland to support British troops involved in peace keeping operations. Some FPOs were also deployed to China in 1927 but were withdrawn in 1940.

Directors of Army Postal Sevices (DAPS) during the war:

• 1939-41 - Brigadier F. C. G. Twinn, CMG
• 1941-42 - Brigadier V. R. Kenny, CB, MBE
• 1942-50 - Brigadier F. Lane, CBE

British Expedition Force (BEF) 1939-40

Immediately on the outbreak of war members of the RE (PS) were mobilised and advance parties of the Postal units, under the command of Colonel W Roberts the Assistant Director Army Postal Services (ADAPS) BEF, were sent to France with their formations.

By mid September 1939 a Base Army Post Office (Base APO) was established at Cherbourg and a Regulating Section was set up at the BEF Assembly Area in Le Mans. Army Post Offices (APOs) were deployed along the lines of communications and FPOs with their respective formations.

The APS provided mail collection and distribution facilities, sold stamps, postal orders and postal stationary, as well as, providing a Telegram service. The transit time for mail between the UK and BEF was 3-4 days. During the 'Phoney War' period a 'cross post' operation was laid for intra-formation mail, the service also carried most of the Royal Signals Despatch Rider Letter Service (DRLS) material. The APS handled an average of 9,000 mailbags a day.

As part of the "Plan D" the Base APO was moved to Le Havre and a Regulating Post Office was established at Bolougne to receive mails from Folkestone. This improved the transit time to 2-3 days.

Postal personnel and their mails were evacuated from Dunkirk during 23 May - 6 June 1940.

Sapper (later Lieutenant Colonel) John Turver described his first sight of the the beaches and the process of evacuation:

What a sight met our eyes, as far as could be seen the sand was covered by a winding column of men who were patiently waiting their turn to go to the mole and on to the jetty.

The system which was in operation was that groups of fifty men had to be formed under a chosen leader, and then only would they take their place in the waiting column. All this time we carried with us our cumbersome cash box which was our stock of several hundred pounds worth of stamps and Postal Orders...Cheerfully we attached ourselves to a crowd of RE's who were forming their own company into several parties of fifty.

Meanwhile British troops left on French soil west of the river Seine had their own problems, Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) E G Hucker RE, OC 2nd Line of Communications (L of C) Postal Unit RE, was among them and kept a private diary (held in the RE Library). His entries for 9-10 June 1940 give some insight into the confusion that reigned immediately after the fall of Dunkirk, he recorded:

Sunday 9 June 1940:

…Trucks of inward (UK) mails (285 bags) received at station [Lisieux] and dealt with. HQ Rouen Sub area, Signals and other small units obtained mail but in general unit mail remained on hand as unit locations were not available. Moreover 'G' staff (Capt Harper) informed me that the Postal Unit must be kept mobile ready to make another move at short notice. ADST seen and a lorry requisitioned for transport of mail. 'G' staff and 'Q' staff (Major Jackson Darling) instructed me to hold all mail for 51 Div as it was impossible to reach them across [the] Seine…

Beauman Div called and collected mail, A Div did not call. Mails for 51 Div returned to Mézidon by road for re-consigning to Base. Party left at Mezidon on Colonel Robert's instructions for requisition trucks. Mails from [APO] S6 returned there except those for 51 Div.

Monday 10 June 1940:

Col Roberts left for Mézidon and Le Mans - taking two bags of unsorted English mail for Base APO 1 [Cherbourg]. Acting on instructions party left for Pont L'Evêque in an effort to locate [APO] S9 staff. I saw Col [John] Evans [DADAPS BEF] there who stated he had no knowledge of [APO] S9 staff and that if they had not already been evacuated to a place south of the river [Seine] they would go to England directly from Le Harve. Telephonic communication with Le Havre not possible after 12 noon.

Railway communication between Lisieux & Base APO [Cherbourg] interupted by enemy's successful bombing of line at Serquigny. Mails for 1 AD collected by Lieutenant Cashin on way to Le Mans.

Information received that Beauman Div already moved to Le Mans area at about 9.0pm 9/6/40. 2 L of C Postal Unit now in forward positions...

Home Forces Postal Organisation 1940-44

The defensive scheme required that the Army Postal Service (APS) form a nationwide postal distribution network for military units. The service was based upon the Home Postal Centre, Royal Engineers (HPC RE) and the establishment of six Army Postal Distribution Centres (APDC) located at:

• London - APDC 1
• Bristol - APDC 2
• Leeds - APDC 3
• Crewe - APDC 4
• Edinburgh - APDC 5
• Belfast - APDC 6

The APDCs received their mail direct from the GPO or the HPC RE. Units were responsible for collecting from, and delivering their mail to their allocated APDC, this system remained in place until the end of the war. (Their war diaries are held in the RE Library).

As part of this system the concept of the "Closed" address (e.g. No Rank Name, Unit, c/o APO England) was developed. It was an innovation that was to later assist in providing the necessary security to ensure the masking of troop movements during the build-up for D Day and the subsequent success of Operation Overlord (D Day landings). The closed address concept was the forerunner of today's BFPO address system.

Home Postal Depot/Centre RE

The centre of the worldwide Army Postal Services operation was the Home Postal Depot (HPD) RE, first established in London in the late summer of 1939, but was moved to GPO Reading shortly after the outbreak of war. It was then relocated to GPO premises in Bournemouth to be nearer to the Continent and therefore provide a more efficient service to the troops of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) serving in France and Belgium.

Correspondence addressed to 'APO England' and to Army and RAF units serving overseas tended at the GPO was circulated to the HPD RE. The Depot, whose primary responsibility was to collect, sort and despatch military mail to its final destination, also acted as a recruitment, training and reinforcement depot, as well as, a Records Office for the RE (PS) and a supply centre for Postal units world-wide.

In May 1941 the Depot was redesignated the Home Postal Centre RE (HPC RE) and relocated to Nottingham, where the organisation requisitioned, for operational and billeting purposes, a hundred and forty of the city's buildings, including; the Vyvella factory premises, the Hickings buildings, the GPO's Queen Street offices and Trent Bridge Cricket ground. It remained in Nottingham until 1947.

Organisation of Home Postal Centre, Royal Engineers (HPC RE)

The HPC RE was organised into several departments and branches, each responsible for their own part of the postal operation.

They included;

• Letter and Parcel Sorting Offices
• Inquiry Branch
• Returned Letter Branch
• Locations Branch
• POW Mail Section
• Telegram, Airgraph, Administration, messing and Motor Transport Departments

These branches, sections and departments were staffed by a mixture of RE (PS), ATS and civilian personnel.

Heavy manual tasks, such as carrying parcel bags, were often undertaken by Conscientious Objectors assigned to the HPC RE.

GPO trains and road service schedules, as well as, specially dedicated trains were used to convey mail between the HPC, the GPO, the Army Postal Distribution Centres (APDC), the overseas embarkation ports of Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow, the airfields in the Midlands and the seaplane port of Poole.

Tracing undeliverable mail

It is a sad fact that during war battlefield casualties invariably produce large quantities of undeliverable mail. In the field, such mail that comes to hand in the units was checked against unit records and disposed of appropriately.

Unit mail which could not be delivered for whatever reason was returned to the Army Post Office (APO) or Field Post Office (FPO), and sent back to postal detachments located at the formation's 2nd Echelon. These detachments checked the mail against the Field Records. Mail that could not be dealt with was returned to the Return Letter Branch (RLB) at HPC RE for further searching and consultation with the Records Office of the appropriate arm. If that proved unsuccessful the letter was eventually returned to the sender.

In the cases where the addressee had been 'killed in action' or was reported 'missing' extreme care was taken to ensure that returned mail did not arrive at the sender's address before the official notification had been issued.

Middle East Force (MEF) 1940-45

At the time that war was declared peace-time garrison troops stationed in North Africa and the Middle East were using the civilian postal services, as they had done since 1882, but by July 1940, under a special arrangement with the Egyptian government, a Base APO was established in Cairo and the Royal Engineers (Postal Section) were allowed to run their own post offices and collect the resulting revenue.

Postal units were deployed with their formations throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Some of the RE (PS) personnel, along with their formations, were captured at Crete and Tobruk and spent the rest of the war as Prisoners of War (POWs).

Surface mail routes through the Mediterranean became extremely vulnerable once Italy entered the war in June 1940 and by mid-1941, after Germany had conquered the Balkan regions, the direct air service to Cairo was cut. This meant that new routes for mail had to be found.

Surface mail was sent via the Cape of Good Hope and an air route was forged across the southern edge of the Sahara desert from Takoradi, West Africa to Khartoum, Sudan. From there it was carried north by rail.

The situation was aggravated by the uncertainty and causalities caused by the German bombing of the major cities of Britain and the enemy U-boat action against the convoy ships carrying mails and supplies.

The mail, if it got through at all, could take 4-8 weeks to do so. To improve the service it was necessary to find a way to lighten the mail so that more of it could be carried by air. The solution, initiated by the APS and the GPO, was the introduction of the 'airgraph' and the 'air letter form'.

Airgraph

The airgraph was invented in the 1930's by the Eastman Kodak Company inconjuction with Imperial Airways (now British Airways) and Pan-American Airways as a means of reducing the weight and bulk of mail carried by air. The airgraph forms , upon which the letter was written, were photographed and then sent as negatives on rolls of microfilm. A GPO poster of the time claimed that 1,600 letters on film weighed just 5oz, while 1,600 ordinary letters weighed 50lbs. At their destination the negatives were printed on photographic paper and delivered as airgraph letters through the normal APS or GPO systems.

In 1940 the Minister of Transport, Lieutenant Colonel Moore-Brabazon RFC , put forward the idea that airgraphs be used to reduce both the bulk and weight of mail travelling between the MEF and the UK. The matter was referred to the APS and the GPO, who jointly investigated the possibility of using airgraphs. This eventually lead to a service being instituted between England and Egypt in 1941 when 70,000 airgraphs were sent in the first batch and took three weeks to reach their destination.

Kodak had offices in Cairo that were capable of processing airgraph negatives, but it was not until the appropriate equipment arrived from America that their Cairo office That the APS was able to provide a return service to the UK.

In the theatres of war the whole airgraph operation was coordinated by the APS. Completed airgraph forms were collected by the A/FPOs and forwarded to the Kodak processing plants, which were co-located with the Base APOs.

The use of the airgraph was not rationed and its postage was also set at three pence (3d). Although the airgraph proved to be immediately popular its use was limited because of its size (approx; 2ins x 3ins) and lack of privacy, so when sufficient aircraft capacity became available its use declined in favour of the air letter.

The airgraph service was later extended to: Canada (1941), East Africa (1941), Burma (1942), India (1942), South Africa (1942), Australia (1943), New Zealand (1943) Ceylon (1944) and Italy (1944).

Air Letter

Lieutenant Colonel R. E. Evans RE, ADAPS MEF, proposed that a lightweight self-sealing letter card that weighed only 1/10 oz be adopted by the British Army for air mail purposes. He recommended its use to Sir Anthony Eden, the Secretary of State for War during his visit to the Middle East in late 1940. By January the following year, General Wavell, the Commander-in-Chief, MEF was told by Eden that "Your Assistant Director Army Postal Services may forthwith introduce an Air Mail Letter Card Service for the Middle East. Use British stamps from all countries, including Egypt."

On 1 March 1941, the service between the Middle East and the UK was started, using a combination of Imperial Airways seaplanes and military transport.

The postage on each air letter was three pence (3d) and, due to limited air capacity, they were initially rationed at one per man per month but towards the end of the war, as more capacity became available, the ration was lifted.

The private nature of the air letter ensured its popularity among its users and that popularity, with its lightness, brought about its continued use as today's civilian air letter (aerogrammes) and the military "bluey".

We can better appreciate the positive effects on morale of these innovations from remarks made in an air letter (also in the display) written by a gunner serving in the Middle East, he wrote:

6 Aug 43

Dear Peggy,

I was extremely bucked to receive your airgraph dated 23rd July. It may be difficult for you to realise how much mail means to us very often it's the difference between a happy day and a miserable one. Probably more so in my case because all the incoming mail passes through my hands and you can imagine how I feel if I sort a couple of hundred letters and there is not one for me! Your letter saved the day and cheered me up immensely….

See Secret Map of Inter-MEF mail services at the close of the Tunisian Campaign - May 1943 (jpg 312kb) - the map shows the mail distribution routes from Cairo to the commands of the 1st Army (Algeria), 8th Army (Tunisia and Egypt), 9th Army (Palestine, Lebanon and Syria).

British North Africa Force (BNAF) 1942-43

The APS was not involved in the initial planning stages of Operation Torch, the 1942 Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. Consequently a Base APO was not established in Algiers until a month after the invasion and through no fault of the APS the mail services to the BNAF were very poor in the initial stages. This was worsened by the fact that a convoy carrying the Christmas mails was sunk.

After consultation between the military authorities and the APS air links with the UK were established and both air letter and airgraph services were made available. Kodak established an airgraph processing station in Algiers, which was later to process the airgraphs sent by troops engaged in the Italian Campaign.

In theatre the mails were carried along the North African coast to the front lines by sea, rail and vehicles. The road service that operated over 500 miles from Algiers to the front was described as having the “the regularity of a town collection in peacetime Britain”.

A staff officer with the 6th Armoured Division commented that “As soon as the tanks pulled out of battle, there was the mail wanting for them – incredible”.

Central Mediterranean Force (CMF) - Italy 1943-45

The Postal units of the MEF and BNAF, which made up the CMF, accompanied their respective formations on the invasion of Sicily and subsequent landings on mainland Italy . These invasions were the first major amphibious operations of the war. (A datestamp taken by a Postal unit from the Syracuse Post Office dated 10 July 1943, the day of the invasion is an exhibited in the Museum).

FPOs were established on the beachheads during the landings at Salerno and Anzio. On two occasions mails leaving the Anizo beaches onboard LST were lost to enemy action.

Once the VIII Army was secured on mainland Italy Base APOs were established, to handle their mails, at Bari on the heel of Italy then at Naples, which became the main Base APO.

Mails were distributed within the VIII Army operational areas by truck that were augmented by rail and air, which were developed to provide an internal mail service to troops as they moved north. Surface mails entered and exited via Naples, Bari, and Taranto. Until the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1945 airmail was staged through Gibraltar on its way between the UK and Naples, but after that date a more direct air route over France was established, which reduced the transit time for airmails to the Italian and Far East theatres.

Transit times of airmail service between Italy and Britain (October 1943 - May 1945)

The only outlet for telegrams accepted at A/FPOs in Sicily was by air from Catania via Castel Benito to Cairo where they were passed to Marconi for electronic transmission to their destination. Once the Base APO was established in Naples the telegrams were flown direct to Cairo.

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India and Far East 1942-45

The mail services for troops serving in the Far East was administered and provided by three agencies; the RE (PS), the Welfare Department of the Adjutant-General's Branch of the Indian Army (GHQ, India) and the Indian Army Postal Service (IAPS), an arrangement that was fraught with political tensions and proved to be an uneasy working relationship.

The outbound surface mail travelled by sea from Liverpool to Durban, South Africa, at which point an APS Postal Regulating Office was established, the mail then crossed the Indian Ocean to the IAPS Postal Clearing Section at Bombay (now Mumbai) and from there it was forwarded to the battle fronts in the Far East.

After the fall of Singapore and the retreat from Burma in 1942 the military postal services in India came to a virtual standstill because a serious backlog of undeliverable mail had built up at the IAPS Postal Clearing Section, Bombay (now Mumbai). A situation that prompted complaints to be heard in the Houses of Parliament. The Director Army Postal Services (DAPS), Brig F Lane, who worked from the GPO HQ, London was instructed to resolve the problem. He sent a member of his staff, Lieutenant Colonel EG Hucker RE to India to investigate the apparent shortcomings of the service.

Hucker concluded that the IAPS should be reorganised along British lines and the adoption of this recommendation coincided with the establishment of the HQ Allied Land Forces, South East Asia (HQ ALFSEA) in 1943, (fragments of his report are held in the Museum).

A Base APO was established at Calcutta (or Kolkata) by the RE (PS) and mail for the British and African troops engaged in the recapture of Burma was forward from there to postal units at the forward supply depots and hence to the front line FPOs.

Reconquest of Burma - mail airdrops

Postal units, officered by RE (PS) were formed for the 81 (West African) and 11 (East African) Divisions and accompanied their respective formations to the Far East.

81 (WA) Division Postal Unit RE - 1943
(Both RE (PS) officers and NCOs managed these Postal units. The staff were raised from ordinary African soldiers, usually those who had worked for their local colonial postal administrations.)

The 81 (WA) Division Postal Unit RE under the command of Lieutenant AE Tee RE become the pioneers of 'air dropping' mails to forward FPOs and troops. Special air despatch postal units were located at the main airfields and were responsible for packing and loading mails onto the correct aircraft. Dedicated mail sorties were flown in Dakotas from the main supply depots at Imphal and later Chittagong. Lieutenant Tee was subsequently promoted and posted to the Chindits to oversee their mail services. L.5 casualty evacuation aircraft were also used to carry mail between the front line FPOs and the APOs at the rear area airfields.

On the ground close co-operation existed between the British and Indian APSs and the two services lines of communication were dovetailed to make efficient use of the resources.

Singapore and Postal POWs

On the fall of Singapore, to the Japanese, on 15 February 1942 the entire staff of the 18 Division Postal Unit RE were interned.

Capt WA Border RE OC 18 Div PU RE

During their internment they took responsibility, as far as their captors allowed, for the organisation of the mail service within the Changi goal and on the 'death' railway work camps in Thailand, for which the OC of the unit, Captain WA Border RE was later awarded a Member of the British Empire (MBE). In 1946 he wrote of this episode:

"After over twelve months the first mail arrived from home, these letters were quite twelve months old, and contrary to the usual Japanese practice the men of the Postal Unit got the work of distribution."

On 18 June 1942 twelve members of the unit left Changi POW Camp for Thailand. In July 1942 Captain Border RE was appointed Assistant Camp Commandant 18 Div, but by November he was ordered, with Spr Joslin, to Bampong Thailand where the POWs were engaged in the construction of the Bangkok-Moulmein railway.

From July 1943 onwards Postal Unit personnel in Thailand gradually split, men being included in various parties sent to jungle camps and employed on the building of the Bangkok-Moulmein railway or transferred to camps in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) and Tokyo, Japan.

Of the 27 members of the unit, 17 (63%) of them survived to be repatriated back to the UK at the end of the war. (A transcript of Border's diary and report of his experiences in captivity is held at the Museum).

Operation Overlord and the British Liberation Army (BLA) 1944-45

The APS played a significant part in Operation Overlord not only as a morale boaster, for General Montgomery and his staff considered that a regular mail service was "the greatest morale factor in an army", but probably more importantly, as one of the means of maintaining the elaborate deception plan that was essential to retain the element of surprise required to ensure the success of the operation.

'APO England' and its contribution to the deception plan

After the ADPCs had been established in late 1940 UK stationed units were served by them using a 'closed address' (i.e. No, Rank, Name, Unit, c/o APO England), the style of which was already in use for overseas theatres (e.g c/o BEF, MEF, SEAC, BLA etc.). This was a radical departure from the past for until then UK based units used their normal civilian GPO address and service.

The importance of this address style was that it meant letters so addressed were circulated under APS control thus providing a simple but effective weapon in the Staff's deception arsenal. The GPO circulated 'APO England' mail to the HPC RE, where it was sorted and forwarded under military control to the correct destination thereby providing the necessary security to mask troop movements and locations. During the build up to the invasion planners ordered that UK units adopt this address style. Such an instruction had obvious implications on the staffing of the HPC, which was reluctantly allowed to increase it establishment to accommodate the extra work. The 'closed address' concept remains a part of today's BFPO address system.

Marshalling areas

In the prelude to the invasion, troops were sealed in their Marshalling areas and their only official contact with the outside world was through the camp's FPO set up by the APS. To maintain secrecy all private mail posted at these FPOs was impounded and stored at the APDCs until the news of the landings had been made public knowledge by the news agencies.

During this time special trains running out of Nottingham were set up to carry mails to the Marshalling areas and embarkation ports. Mail was delivered to the assault troops up until D-1 (5 June).

Pre-location scheme

The APS planners were among the very few staffs that were entrusted with knowledge of the full battle plan, with such information, the ADAPS Second Army, Lieutenant Colonel C.R. Smith RE conceived a pre-location scheme that enabled mail to be delivered to the various 'serials' of each unit as they landed in Normandy. The scheme worked on a system of 'phantom FPOs' whereby units were allocated FPOs from which they collect their mails. In reality they were served by the FPO closest to them, which may not have been their allocated FPO, but was regarded by the APS for location purposes as their phantom FPO.

Normandy Beaches

FPOs attached to the breach parties and special forces were established on the beaches on D-Day. Although it was planned that mail be delivered to units on D+1 (7 June), mail was delivered the following day (D+2) because of confusion caused by the day's delay of the invasion.

To ensure the safe recovery of mail from ships arriving from Southampton, a Postal officer was given the task of patrolling the choppy anchorages in an amphibious Jeep bawling through a megaphone at each ship "Are you carrying mail?". This system remained in place until the Mulberry Harbours at Arromanches were established to allow mails to be docked more formally.

The 6 Airborne Division Postal Unit RE (commanded by Captain JCG Hine RE and as a unit accompanied the Division on its airborne drops during the night of 5/6 June), and the Beach Group APO S698 made the first despatch from Normandy on D+2 (8 June).

Base Army Post Office 8

The main Base Army Post Office (No 8) arrived in theatre on D+10 (16 June) and established itself in a barn at Crepon. The barn had to be cleared of 20ft deep accumulation of manure and straw by bulldozers of a RE Road Construction Company before the Base Army Post Office could become operational.

The Base Army Post Office was later moved forward to Brussels, where it remained to until the end of the war.

The advancing British and Canadian forces took Antwerp, Belgium on 4 September 1944. Later in the month on 26 September the Base Army Post Office closed at Crepon and at the same time opened in a large warehouse belonging to the Societe de Congo, in Antwerp.

Airlifts and road service schedules

On 6 July 1944 (D+30) a two-way airlift system was established between the UK and airstrips in Normandy for the exclusive transportation of letters and newspapers.

As the British Army advanced along the north coast of France into Belgium and finally into Germany, these airlifts continued and were augmented by an elaborate system of road service schedules that linked the airstrips with the Base APO and A/FPOs. Towards the end of 1944 the schedules were settled and it was said that ones' watch could be set by the arrival of these vehicles, such was their punctuality. The principle routes were:

The service provided a transit time of 2-3 days from the UK.

In September 1944 an Advance Base Army Post Office (No 18) was opened in Dieppe, it was transferred to Ostend and on 25 October 1944 was redesignated 18 Postal Port Regulating Section.

Once troops crossed the Rhine a Postal Despatch Rider Service was operated daily on a schedule between the Army Depot, the Location Centre and the Base Army Post Office. This enabled the APS to keep up todate with the rapidly changing locations of advancing units.

End of hostilities in Europe

Among the Postal archive is an apt illustration of the end of hostilities in Europe it is an original signal (jpg 92kb) received by Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) John Turver RE, Officer Commanding (OC) Guards Armoured Division Postal Unit RE on 5 May 1945 at Stade (between Hamburg and Cuxhaven), and simply reads:

GERMANS surrendered unconditionally at 0820B hours 4 May 45. Hostilities on all Second Army fronts ceased at 0800B hours today 5 May 45. NO repeat NO adv[ance] beyond present front line without orders from this HQ.

After the German surrender FPOs were established in all the main towns of the British zone of Germany. Airmail was flown to various forward airfields, but Buckeburg eventually became the main terminal. Surface mail entered Europe at Calais and forwarded to the Rhine by train, from there it was transferred to vehicles and transported by road.

A base post office was established in Herford, which in 1946 became the Zone Postal Depot.

Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) - Postal

The first ATS to join the RE (PS), at the beginning of the war, were members of the Berkshire Company ATS, a cadre of administrators and cooks for HPD RE in Reading. They moved with the HPD to Bournemouth and then to Nottingham. It was at Bournemouth that they first became involved in the postal aspect of the work at the Depot.

By the end of the war the ATS women made up 49% of the total strength of the HPC RE, employed in both postal and administrative duties. After 1944 some were deployed at the Base APOs in Belgium and Italy.

On joining the HPC they received 5-6 weeks Postal training before being posted to their companies. They became the major letter sorting force of the HPC and were each expected to sort 1,000 letters per hour during an 8-hour shift.

Army Post Office WW2 by Dorothy Pope nee Pelmear (www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/U1638543)

Auxilliary Territorial Service - Army Post Office by Barbara Danter - the uniform that Barbara wore at the Home Postal Centre, Nottingham can be seen at the Museum. (www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A2061299)

Dominion and Foreign Army Postal Services

The Canadians established a Base APO in Manchester and where possible their service ran in parallel with the British APS. The HPC RE also provided them with postal stationery and equipment.

In the Middle East, Far East and Italian Campaigns; Australian, Indian, New Zealand and South African APS used the British APS's lines of communication to carry their mails between the front and rear areas.

After the fall of Europe, small components of the Allies armies, such as the Free French, the Belgiums, Poles and Czechs escaped to Britain and were re-formed. They raised their own Postal units, which were trained by the RE (PS). In the field their postal services were dovetailed into the British APS, and the HPC RE provided much of their postal stationery and equipment.

The American forces had their own APS based upon a Base APO in Sutton Coldfield, their service ran separate from the British service, although there was much liaison between to the two services. In 1947 the Home Postal Centre move from Nottingham into the vacated American Army Post Office in Sutton Coldfield

Conclusion

The period of the Second World War could be seen as the Army Postal Service's 'finest hour' for, against the odds, the APS succeeded in establishing and maintaining a thoroughly professional service that came to be relied upon by the troops and their families back home. A great deal is owed to the 7,000 men and women of the APS, who worked so tirelessly and selflessly to provide such a vital service. There is no doubt that they made a major contribution to maintaining the morale of the nation and its fighting forces during the war.

Royal Engineers Museum - Postal & Courier Services Archive

Mailshot - A history of the Forces Postal Service Wells E (DPCS, Mill Hill, 1987)

Burma Post Baker R (1982)

Operation Overlord - A history of the APS in relation to Operation Overlord Holmes Brig KS (1984)

History of British Army Postal Service Vol III 1928-1963 Proud EB:(1982)

Cleft Stick - The Defence Postal & Courier Services Officers' Association Newsletter.

The Rag - Official magazine of the Home Postal Centre RE (No 5, December 1946).

Newsletter of the Forces Postal History Society

Links to further reading:

Corps History - The Corps and the Second World War

Campaign History - Royal Engineers and Operation Overlord

Campaign History - 6th Airborne Divisional Engineers - D Day 1944