Rhodesian Study Circle: Memoir 17 – The Postal History of Southern Rhodesia during World War II
Rhodesian Study Circle
The Postal History of Southern Rhodesia during World War II
{See below for 2024 Updates which can be downloaded.}
The authors have produced a comprehensive record of specific aspects of the postal history of a country involved in a war which took place elsewhere; as a result the subject lacks the glamour of campaign covers and battle memorabilia, and has largely been ignored until now. This has now been redressed, and this work provides an important exercise in collecting together in one place a number of diverse threads of the story of how the postal services coped with the problems of long range communication in era of political disruption. Some of these problems were the same as those encountered by British colonies elsewhere; some were specific to Southern Rhodesia.
There is a full listing of the postal rates and services in force from September 1939 to the end of the war, and a detailed list of the cachets used by the S.R. Air Force and the Rhodesia Air Training Group and the Air Force Camp Post Offices which builds on earlier information; there were also numerous RAF Camps involved in training for the war, and this detail is also included, as is the Army and related mail. Much of the information was previously unrecorded and the illustrations are particular good.
Active Service Letter Cards, Airgraphs, Censorship, Patriotic items, and War economy labels followed the pattern established elsewhere, but here we have the specific rules applicable to S.R.; events and aspects specific to S.R. are also included with details of their impact on postal history, such as the South African War Train 1941 (a recruitment drive), internment and refugee camp mail , and the S.R. War Fund which was set up to assist those who served under Southern Rhodesian conditions of service and their families. This work will appeal to all students of WW II postal history, where it adds to the wider story; it will also be of particular value to collectors of this material who now for the first time have a guide on which to build their collections.
Details
- Memoir: 17
- Title: The Postal History of Southern Rhodesia during World War II
- Author: C.J. Cooksey and K.G. Harrop
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- PDF – £7.50 (Member), £9 (Non Member)
- Print to Order Copy – £15+P&H (Member), £18+P&H (Non Member)
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2024 Update to Memoir 17
It is thirteen years since Keith Harrop and I produced Memoir 17 on The Postal History of Southern Rhodesia during World War II. It has been suggested that it might be a good idea to produce a second edition highlighting all the new discoveries that have been made in the intervening years. However much of the content remains unaltered and so it has been decided that it might be more sensible to create a section on the RSC website to record and update certain sections.
The first stage will be to update the sections containing cachets (see below) that were used to authorise free surface postage as this is an area where the most new finds have occurred. This approach will enable new discoveries to be added from time to time. The website will also act as a base for any further new information relating to the postal history of this period.
The concept of free surface postage for a number of Active Service Units was first proclaimed in the Department of Posts and Telegrams Departmental Circular No. 24 of 1939 (see below). It is interesting to note that the list of countries to which the service applied did not include the U.K. which has been added in manuscript. The regulations required that all mail would be franked by military authorities for free transmission. This franking took the form of cachets of the particular unit and in the early days the signature of an approved official.
This resulted in the multitude of cachets that are the subject of this section. For ease of reference all cachets listed in Memoir 17 have been included together all new finds to date and are grouped under seven appropriate headings. Six of these are as per the Memoir but a seventh section Government Cachets has been added. The organisations in this group did not necessarily have a military connection but as they qualified for free postage it has been decided to include them.
I would like to thank Keith Harrop, Mike Hughes and Dirk Kind for their assistance in this update.
Christopher Cooksey
These new examples can de downloaded.
