Initially, the rate from New Zealand to Europe via USA was 6s 3d while from September 1940
it was reduced to 5s 9d. The rate from UK to New Zealand remained at 4s 6d.
The rate to USA was 4s 0d and that rate could also be used to Europe with the stage from New
York being by surface.
As the airmail route via the Mediterranean had closed in
June 1940 when Italy entered World War II, the FAM 19
route via New Zealand and the USA was now the best airmail route between
Australia and the UK although there was still a route via Hong Kong.
Mail could be flown by the regular trans-Tasman service
from Australia to New Zealand where it could join the Pan Am service FAM 19.
This route was also used for some airmail to the USA from India and the
Dutch East Indies.
Flights from New Zealand
To Sweden
The rate from New Zealand to European countries was the same as the rate to UK.
This cover, adressed to Malmo in Sweden, is postmarked on 5 September 1940 and is
franked with 6s 7d which is the standard 6s 3d rate plus 4d registration fee.
Unfortunately, part of the cover is missing and the missing part may have had
extra transit marks that would have given some hints as to the routing.
The route after it arrived in Lisbon is not clear.
There was no UK – Sweden air mail service at this time but there
were air mail services from Lisbon to Sweden via Berlin
and they may have been used as Sweden was a neutral country.
The handstamp Avhamtas a poststationen / Malmo 5 / Fridhem appears to have been applied
in Malmo and so it would apear to have safely arrived at its destination.
According to the New Zealand Post Office, all postal services to Sweden were suspended
on 2 July 1940 [23].
Mail from New Zealand to Europe that was intercepted is discussed in [22] and
mail to Sweden later in the war in [24].
Reduced rate to UK: September 1940
Initially mail from New Zealand to the UK had to be re-sorted
in San Francisco.
As this was now the only through airmail
route between New Zealand and Great Britain
(the Horseshoe Route took much longer)
the volume of mail increased sufficiently for
closed bags to be made up in New Zealand for the UK mail so that no sorting had to be
done in San Francisco.
This reduced costs and on 4 September the New Zealand Post Office
announced that from 9 September 1940
the airmail postage rate from New Zealand to the UK
via the USA was to be reduced from 6s 3d to 5s 9d.
(According to Griffiths [2], this reduction only applied
to the UK and not to the rest of Europe, but a cover to Geneva at the 5s 9d rate is shown below.)
The first Pan American flight at the new rate left Auckland on Wednesday 18 September
and arrived in San Francisco on 23 September.
According to the timetable in Proud [8], the service was scheduled to leave
on a Saturday and so was four days late.
This flight was also the first time that fare paying passengers were
flown from New Zealand to USA [6].
This censored cover is postmarked on 9 September, the first day at the new rate.
It was flown across both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans
by PanAm and then from Lisbon to the UK by BOAC.
As well as the flying boat service from Lisbon to Poole, a service from Lisbon
to London Heston via Opporto had been set up from 2 August
using DC 3 planes on charter from KLM.
From 23 September, this service was operated from Bristol.
It was temporarily suspended between 9 October and
17 December 1940 [15].
Also, at that time, the route from New York to Lisbon was
changed to include a stop in Bermuda.
5s 9d rate to Switzerland
Diplomatic Mail
This cover is postmarked on 18 December 1940 and was sent from
the Swiss Consulate in Wellington to a Swiss
Government Department in Berne.
It is franked with 5s 9d and would have been flown by FAM 19 to USA
and from New York to Lisbon by Pan American FAM 18.
It may then have been flown part of the way from Lisbon to Switzerland.
On the back, there is a signed declaration and official handstamp that the cover only
contained official correspondence
and so it was not opened by the New Zealand censors although it did pass through
their office as shown by the Wellington censors’ 24 handstamp on the front.
There are no further censor marks.
to Red Cross in Geneva
Enquiries about Prisoners of War were often sent to the International Red Cross in Geneva.
This cover is postmarked on 26 March 1941 in Lyttelton near Christchurch
and is franked with 5s 9d.
It would have gone by the same route as the previous cover.
It would have initially been sent to the Censor’s Office in Christchurch,
but 51 is a Wellington censor number and so it was then sent there.
It has an alpha control mark (C) on the back.
These were internal marks used for communication in the Censor’s Office when a cover required special treatment.
Unusually, this cover has been sealed by blank censor tape which presumably means that
there was a shortage of the normal labels.
The change from the first to the second kind of censor tape was in April 1941
which is only shortly after this cover would have been dealt with by the censors.
From 16 September 1941, concessionary air mail rates were introduced for POW
air mail and this was also used for mail to the Red Cross in Geneva.
The 5s 9d rate was reduced to 3s 0d.
4s 0d rate to USA
This official OHMS cover is postmarked in Wellington on 8 July 1941 and is addressed to Washington DC.
It is franked with 4s 0d and has a Not Opened by Censor in NZ 6 censor stamp in an octagonal frame.
According to Startup [18], this censor mark appears to have been used by supervising censors at Auckland, Wellington and possibly Christchurch on mail to or from prominent individuals such as Ministers of the Crown and that examples are uncommon.
As this cover is an OHMS envelope and addressed to a
New Zealand official in Washington it qualified for this special treatment.
4s 0d rate to UK
The rate from New Zealand to USA was 4s 0d.
It was possible to address air mail to the UK at the 4s 0d
rate to the USA.
The mail was flown from New Zealand to New York and was then sent
to the UK by sea [9].
This censored cover is franked with 4s 0d and postmarked in Auckland on 2 April 1941.
It is likely to have been flown on the flight that left Auckland on 13 April
and arrived in San Francisco on 17 April [10].
The rate for this service in the opposite direction was 3s 0d.
5s 0d rate to Canada
This cover is postmarked on 19 June, 1941 in Auckland where it was opened by the censor.
It is addressed to Canada.
According to Startup [7], the rate from New Zealand to Canada of 4s 0d did not cover
airmail within USA.
For that the rate was 5s 0d which is the franking on this cover.
It would be flown to San Francisco and then by
US and Canadian air mail services to Montreal.
The rate from Australia to Canada was only 3s 11d.
4s 0d rate to Canada
From 9 September 1941, the postage rate for the complete air journey
to Canada was reduced to 4s 0d when the US authorities informed the New Zealand Post Office
that mail at the 4s 0d rate to Canada was being flown all the way [7].
This next cover to Canada was postmarked on 6 October 1941, i.e. after
the rate had been officially reduced to 4s 0d.
It was censored in Wellington.
UK to NZ at 4s 6d rate
Flown to New York by BOAC?
The airmail rate from the UK to New Zealand was 4s 6d and
it remained at this rate throughout the
duration of the service.
It was therefore significantly less than the rate from New Zealand.
The usual airmail route for the UK to New York leg was UK to Lisbon by BOAC and
Lisbon to New York via the Azores by Pan Am.
It is interesting that the routing instructions on this cover have been amended.
Originally they were: via Pan American Atlantic, USA & Pacific Air Mail
and the Pan American has been crossed out and changed to
Nth Atlantic & Trans Pacific Air Mail Service as
described in the Post Office Circular of 7 August.
This cover is from the UK and is addressed to New Zealand.
It is a commercial cover postmarked on 12 August 1940
and was not opened by the censor in either the UK or New Zealand.
It is likely to have been flown on the 4th FAM 19 flight
that left San Francisco on 24 August and arrived in Auckland on 2 September
having been delayed for several days in Noumea, New Caledonia [10].
Between 3 August and 11 October 1940, BOAC made 5 return flights between Poole
and New York via Foynes (Ireland), Botwood (Newfoundland) and Montreal [15].
The second flight left Poole on 14 August and arrived in New York on 15 August [16].
There is therefore the possibility
that this cover was flown to New York by BOAC.
However, most of the capacity on the BOAC flights was reserved for official
business with the route via Lisbon remaining the principal route.
There were flights from the UK to Lisbon on 14, 16 and 17 August
and Pan Am flights from Lisbon to New York on 18 and 20 August [16].
Double Rate
This registered cover is franked with 9s 3d which is twice the 4s 6d rate plus a registration fee
of 3d.
The registered letter stationery is pre-franked with 5½d which does not seem to have been taken into
account by the sender and so the cover is overfranked by that amount.
The postmarks are faint, but appear to be 16 January 1941.
The first flight from Lisbon after 12 January was on 24 January arriving in New York
on 25 January.
The Honolulu Clipper left San Francisco on 8 February, but had to return due
to bad weather.
It eventually left on 12 February, but was further delayed for 9 days in Canton Island
again due to bad weather.
It was then delayed for a day in New Caledonia due to an outbreak of Bubonic Plague
and eventually reached Auckland on 28 February [10].
It was originally addressed to Russell and then redirected which resulted in the Russell backstamp
of 3 March 1941 and the Taneatua receiving mark on 5 March.
Covers from Britain to New Zealand on FAM 19 are not particularly common and
I am very interested in seeing a cover
from the UK postmarked in early July and scheduled for the first flight or
indeed any cover sent before 7 August which is when the Post Office Circular
listing the flight and its postage rate was published.
Partial airmail route UK – NZ: 3s 0d rate
There was also a partial airmail rate between Great Britain and New Zealand.
Mail could be sent across the Atlantic by sea and then be flown by
domestic
United States airmail services to San Francisco and from there by
FAM 19 to Auckland at a cost of 3s 0d.
This is an example cover flown by this route and is postmarked in Taunton on 27
September 1940.
Such covers are scarce as crossing the Atlantic by sea was the most
dangerous part of the route and the service was still very expensive.
The routing instructions are Via New York & Transpacific
which is given in the Post Office Circular of 7 August 1940 that announced
the service.
The rate for this service in the opposite direction was 4s 0d.
Australia – NZ – USA
Australia – NZ – USA – UK
This cover was flown from Australia to the UK via New Zealand and USA.
It is franked with 5s 10d which was the airmail rate from Australia to the UK via
New Zealand.
It is postmarked in Sydney on 20 November 1940. There is no backstamp,
but a manuscript on the back states that it was received on
26 December.
It would have been flown from Auckland on either 26 November or on 7 December,
arriving in San Francisco on either 30 November or 11 December [10].
The heavy Christmas mail would have been the reason for its delay.
The cover has the cachet California Clipper which was
applied at Sydney from September 1940.
The two red dots under BY in the censor tape show that
the cover was opened by the censor in Sydney.
BOAC had started a service between England and Lisbon
in June, and so the route between Australia and the UK was:
- trans-Tasman to New Zealand by TEAL,
- trans-Pacific (FAM 19) by Pan Am from New Zealand to America,
- US airmail from San Franciso to New York,
- trans-Atlantic from New York to Lisbon by Pan Am,
- Lisbon to England by BOAC or KLM.
The postal rate from Australia to the UK of 5s 10d was less
than the initial New Zealand – UK rate of 6s 3d.
The reason was that the quantity of mail from Australia
was sufficiently large for closed bags to be made up
while mail from New Zealand had to be sorted in San Francisco
and so had an extra handling charge.
(From September 1940, closed bags were also made up from
New Zealand and the
rate was reduced from 6s 3d to 5s 9d.)
Australia – NZ – USA: 7s 11d rate
The airmail rate from Australia to USA via New Zealand was 4s 0d for the
first half ounce and 3s 11d for each subsequent half ounce.
This cover is postmarked on 26 September 1941 in Sydney and was overweight and
so is franked with 7s 11d.
The red number 2 on the censor tape indicates that it was censored in Sydney.
Australia – NZ – USA – Canada
Although the rate from both New Zealand and Australia to the USA was 4s 0d, the rate from
Australia to Canada was 3s 11d although many covers were franked with 4s 0d.
This censored cover is postmarked Melbourne on 2 December 1940, is addressed
to Toronto and is franked at the 3s 11d rate.
The censor label has three red dots to indicate that it was done at the Melbourne office.
According to Startup [7], the rate from New Zealand to Canada was 5s 0d if it was
flown all the way.
I have not seen any reference in the literature to suggest that the mail from
Australia to Canada at the 3s 11d rate was not flown all the way and it
seems unlikely that it was treated differently from the New Zealand mail.
It is therefore likely that mail from New Zealand to Canada at the 4s 0d rate
was flown all the way despite what the New Zealand authorities said [12].
It is interesting that while Australia had a lower air mail rate to Canada than New Zealand,
that was not the case in the opposite direction.
From Canada, the air mail rate to New Zealand was 75c while the rate to Australia was 90c
and in both cases the mail was flown all the way including within Canada and the US.
Australia – NZ – USA – Canada – UK
The US Neutrality Act meant that mail could not be sent directly from the USA to
countries that were at war.
That would mean that mail could not be sent directly from the USA to the UK although
that did not deter the New Zealand authorities who routed mail to be
flown to New York and then to the UK by sea.
The Australian authorities on the other hand required mail that was to cross the
Atlantic by sea to be routed via Canada and to have the inscription
via N.Z. / Canada as shown in the example which is postmarked in Sydney
on 13 March 1941.
It was flown from Australia to Canada via New Zealand and USA and then went by sea from
Canada to the UK.
This service does not appear to have been used very much [13, 14].
The postage rate was 3s 11d, the same as the airmail rate from Australia to Canada.
There was of course no problem with mail that was flown all the way to the UK as it went
via Portugal which was a neutral country.
The routing via Canada appears to have been followed as the Sydney Morning Herald of
7 June 1941 reports mail sent from Australia on this route as having been lost [19].
All this mail being lost is surprising as the first three dispatches from Sydney would
have been sent on the P.A.A. service from Auckland on 1 March while the fourth would have been
sent on the service of 5 March.
Rate via Hong Kong, but flown via New Zealand, October 1940
As well as the route via New Zealand, there was another, even more expensive,
airmail route from Australia to USA.
It was by Qantas and BOAC to Bangkok, by
BOAC from Bangkok to Hong Kong and from there
to the USA by PanAm.
An airmail service to USA via Hong Kong had been available since April 1937
while the service to UK via Hong Kong and USA had only been available since 20
June 1940 and its use was greatly reduced when the route via New Zealand became
available a month later.
The postage rate from Australia to UK via Hong Kong and USA was 6s 5d while the
rate via New Zealand and USA was 5s 10d.
The postage rate from Australia to the USA via Hong Kong was 4s 8d while the
rate to Canada was 4s 7d.
This cover to the UK has no routing instructions, but is franked
with the via Hong Kong rate of 6s 5d.
However, it has a California Clipper cachet indicating that
it went via New Zealand.
The reason is that the
last flight on the Bangkok – Hong Kong
feeder service was
on 14 October due to Japanese pressure on the Vichy government in Indo-China
and, in the weeks before that, there had been major disruptions to the service [10].
The cover is postmarked in Brisbane on 29 October 1940.
Although there were plans (never realised) to resume the Bangkok – Hong Kong service,
the Australian postal authorities clearly decided
that a more reliable route was via New Zealand.
It would be flown on the flight from
Auckland to San Francisco that left on 12 November.
I have seen a cover postmarked in Tasmania on 12 October, 1940 that has a
Hong Kong transit mark on 24 October.
I assume that it was flown from Sydney to Singapore on 15 – 18 October and went
from Singapore to Hong Kong by sea.
There were major disruptions due to bad weather on the service from Hong Kong
to San Francisco and the next flight did not arrive in San Francisco
until 14 November [10].
It would be interesting to determine when the Australian authorities
stopped sending airmail via Hong Kong and started diverting it to the
route via New Zealand.
Australia – Switzerland
This commercial cover to Geneva in Switzerland is postmarked on 10 May 1941
and is franked with 6s 0d.
The route was air to Portugal and then by surface.
It was opened by the censors in Melbourne, but there are no further censor marks.
The rate from Australia to Switzerland via New Zealand is not clear.
The Table of Air Mail Charges for February 1941 gives the rate
for Portugal, Spain and Switzerland as 5s 8d, but that has been added in manuscript
with the figure of 6s 0d crossed out.
The April 1941 Table of Air Mail Charges for these countries gives the rate as 6s 0d [26].
Apparently most known examples are franked 5s 8d [26].
Internee Mail: Australia – UK
Airmail cover from a Dr Tabak, postmarked on 29 November 1940 and addressed to Mrs Wiener in the UK with a
Prisoner of War Service handstamp.
It is franked with 5s 10d and has routing instructions Via N.Z. – U.S.A. – Great Britain.
The address on the back is Hut 19, 8 Camp, Eastern Command, c/o District Censor,Reservoir Str, Sidney.
It would have been sent unsealed to the District Censor which is why, although it has a Passed by Censor S59
handstamp, it does not have the usual Australian censor resealing tape.
In July 1940 Britain had sent 2500 internees to Australia on the troopship Dunera in appalling conditions.
Most were Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.
From September 1940 until May 1941, they were interred at Internment Camps 7 and 8 at Hay in New South Wales.
This cover was likely sent by an internee at Hay Camp 8.
After Japan entered the war in December 1941, they were reclassified as friendly aliens and released.
Winston Churchill later described their internment as a “deplorable and regrettable mistake”.
India – Australia – NZ – USA – UK
The closure of the route through the Mediterranean and
the introduction of the Horseshoe Route
had greatly increased the
transit time of mail between India and the UK.
A solution was to fly mail from India to Bangkok on the main BOAC/Qantas
Eastern Route and then on the BOAC feeder
service from Bangkok to Hong Kong.
It could then be flown across the Pacific by PanAm
on the FAM 14 route to San Francisco via the Philippines.
An alternative route was by BOAC/Qantas
to Australia and then trans-Tasman to New Zealand and from there on
the PanAm trans-Pacific
FAM 19 route to San Francisco.
From there it was flown across America before being flown trans-Atlantic via Lisbon
as described above.
This cover is postmarked 1 June 1941 and has the routing
instructions India – Auckland – England.
It has postage of 3 rupees, 4 annas and 12 pies which is equivalent to
53 annas.
From 12 December 1940 until 23 May 1941, the air mail fee from India to the UK via Auckland was 49½ annas which
had to be added to the surface rate of 3½ annas giving a total of 53 annas.
The Indian Postal Notice of 23 May 1941, stated that the air mail fee via Auckland was increased to 52 annas [21].
Hence, as this cover is postmarked on 1 June 1941, it is insufficiently franked, but has
the franking that would have been correct 9 days earlier.
It does not have any postage due markings and so it is possible that there was a period
of grace before the new rates were enforced.
The Overseas Mail Branch Report for 24 May 1941 announced that a
complete air mail service from the UK to Burma, India, Ceylon, Dutch East Indies,
Malaya and Siam was now available at a cost of 5s 0d.
Mail was routed via either the Pan Am service to Singapore or New Zealand
depending on which gave the best connection [17].
Dutch East Indies – Australia – NZ – USA – (UK)
Dutch East Indies – USA rerouted via New Zealand
This cover is postmarked in Soerabaja on 30 October 1940 and is addressed to the USA.
It has via China Clipper routing instructions, but they have been crossed out
with Australia inserted in red pencil.
The reason is the same as with the above cover from Australia at the 6s 5d rate, i.e.
that the Bangkok – Hong Kong feeder service had been suspended and so the best option
was to send it via Australia to be sent on the FAM 19 route from Auckland.
That it went on this route is proved by the presence of an Australian censor label.
It would be flown on the flight from
Auckland to San Francisco that left on 12 November.
Dutch East Indies – USA via New Zealand
This cover is postmarked in Bandoeng on 3 May 1941 and is addressed to the USA.
It has a Seint via Radio diamond shaped datestamp that I have seen before,
but I do not know what it signifies.
It is routed by KNILM to Australia, then trans Tasman to Auckland,
Pan American from Auckland to San Francisco and then
flown to Wisconsin by domestic American air services.
The franking is 80 cents made up of 15 cents
normal postage plus 65 cents per 5 grams air fee to USA.
It has been censored twice as seen by the two overlapping brown
censor tapes.
The Dutch East Indies censor stamp is dated 6 May 1941 and is partially obscured
by the later censor tape which has a second censor stamp Passed by Censor 268 A
which I believe was applied in the USA.
According to Aitink & Hovenkamp, there was a KNILM flight from
Batavia to Sydney on 11 May
arriving in Sydney on 13 May, a flight from Sydney to Auckland on Saturday 17 May
and a flight which left Auckland on Monday 19 May and arrived in San Francisco on
Friday 23 May [10].
However, the cover has a company receiving mark on the back indicating that it was received
in Milwaukee on 22 May which does not fit with the above dates.
There is, of course, no guarantee that the Company backstamp has the correct date,
but as the literature often has conflicting information for flight dates around that time,
it is interesting to determine the consequences if the date is correct.
According to the time table reproduced in Proud [8], the
Pan American flights in May 1941 were scheduled to leave Auckland on a Saturday
(e.g. 17 May) and arrive in San Francisco on a Wednesday (e.g. 21 May).
According to Lee [11], there was a trans Tasman flight from Sydney on every second Friday
to connect with the PanAm service from Auckland.
That would mean that the cover was flown from Sydney to Auckland on 16 May.
Hence, if the normal schedule was followed, the dates fit with the company backstamp.
An alternative is that the routing instructions were ignored and that it was
flown by KNILM to Manila on 13 -14 May and then from Manila to
San Francisco by PAA on 17 – 21 May [10].
Dutch East Indies – USA – UK via New Zealand
This cover is postmarked in Medan, Sumatra on 5 January 1941 and is addressed to the UK.
It is franked with 90 cents (the bottom right stamp is overprinted 10 + 5 ct)
and has the same routing instructions as the previous cover.
If it followed the routing instructions, it would have been sent by KLM from Medan
to Batavia, from there to Sydney by KNILM, trans-Tasman by TEAL,
Auckland – San Francisco by Pan American and then to New York by air
before being sent Transatlantic to the UK.
However, as the air fee to UK was 85 cents for 5 grams (plus 15 cents normal postage), it does not have sufficient
franking to be sent Transatlantic by air and so it is likely that the
last leg was by sea.
There is no guarantee that it was actually sent on the route via New Zealand
as it may have been sent from Batavia to Manila.
After 10 May 1941, the normal route from the Dutch East Indies to USA was to Singapore
and then on the new FAM 14 route Singapore – Manila – Hawaii – San Francisco.
Switzerland – NZ – Australia
Cover postmarked in Switzerland on 17 September 1941 and addressed to Australia.
It is franked with 3Fr 70c which is the air mail rate for 5-10 grams (1Fr 70c per 5 grams airmail
surcharge plus 30c per 20 grams surface).
The route was to Lisbon and then to New York by FAM 18, San Francisco to Auckland by FAM 19,
Auckland to Sydney by TEAL.
The route from Switzerland to Lisbon is not clear.
There was an air mail route: Zurich to Stuttgart by Swissair or Deutsche Lufthansa (DLH),
Stuttgart to Lisbon by DLH.
It was opened by the censors on arrival in Sydney, but as it has no earlier censor marks, it
was likely sent from Switzerland to Spain by surface via Vichy France in order to avoid German
censorship.
Egypt – Australia – NZ – USA
This cover is postmarked Mouvement Etranger Caire on 30 March 1941 and is addressed to New York.
It has an Egyptian Censorship Department handstamp on the front and one
in reverse on the back.
There is then a Cairo 2 April datestamp , a purple S 8167 handstamp and a black boxed 79
on the back.
It has been re-sealed by brown tape inscribed Passed by Examiner
which was likely done by the British authorities in Cairo after the cover had been passed to them to be flown by
BOAC
It is franked with 117 mills which was the air mail rate (22 mills surface + 95 mills air mail surcharge)
to be flown from Egypt to Sydney by BOAC/Qantas,
by TEAL to Auckland and from there to USA on FAM 19 by Pan American.
From June to October 1940, the usual route was Cairo – Bangkok – Hong Kong – San Francisco at a rate
of 122 mills while from May – November 1941, it was Cairo – Singapore – San Francisco [25].
The route via New Zealand was primarily used between late October 1940 and April 1941 and this cover is within that period.
The alternative route during that time
was from Rangoon to Hong Kong by CNAC and then from Hong Kong to San Francisco on FAM 14, but it was more expensive.
Saudi Arabia – Australia – NZ – USA – Canada
This cover is postmarked in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and is addressed to Canada.
The Jeddah date is indistinct, but the cover was redirected in Canada on 16 January 1941.
There is the reverse of an Egyptian censor mark on the back.
The franking is 17½ guerche (aka ghirsh or piastre) plus a 1/8 guerche hospital charity
stamp that seems to be a compulsory addition to all Saudi mails at this time.
Its route is likely to be Jeddah to Cairo by surface and then by the Horseshoe Route
to Sydney.
From Sydney it would be flown by TEAL to Auckland and from there to USA on
FAM 19 by Pan American.
It would then be flown by internal US and Canadian air mail to Canada.
The Air Mail etiquette has been crossed out to indicate that the air mail part of the
journey had been completed.
This may have been done when it was redirected.
The route via New Zealand is supported by the Winnipeg datestamp of 16 January as
there was a FAM 19 flight from Auckland to San Francisco on 7-11 January 1941.
The route Egypt – Rangoon – Hong Kong – San Francisco would seem to be ruled out
as the relevant arrival dates in San Francisco are 4 and 15 January which do not fit [10].
Air mails from Saudi Arabia are uncommon at this time and I have not been able to find the
relevant air mail rates.
back next
All scans were made by the author.
Information on this page is taken from:
Airmails of New Zealand, volume 2 (1986) compiled by
Douglas A Walker, and
The New Zealand Airmail Catalogue, (2nd Edition, 1994)
by James Stapleton.
Both are published by the
Air Mail Society of New Zealand
[1] M Shand, ‘New Zealand – USA Air Mail Service – What was the Postage Rate?’,
The Kiwi, vol 49, p 135, November 2000.
[2] Q 271, K A Griffiths, Air Mail News, vol 45,
pp 97-98, August 2002.
[3] Legg, W.H., Wartime Interruptions to Airmail Routes,
Air Mail News, vol 47, pp 46-53, May 2004.
[4] Clark, R., Alternatives to the Horseshoe Route in June and July 1940,
The Kiwi, vol 58, pp 42-47, March 2009.
[5] Berry, A., Notes on the Report on the Perforations Workshop and the
Horseshoe Route in the last issue of the Kiwi,
The Kiwi, vol 58, p 61, May 2009.
[6] Krupnick, J.E., Pan American Pacific Pioneers, 1997.
[7] Startup, R.M., Airmails of New Zealand, volume 3, 1997.
[8] Proud, E.B., The Postal History of British Air Mails, Proud-Bailey, 1991.
[9] R.M. Startup and C.J. LaBlonde, The Postal History of World War II Mail between New
Zealand and Switzerland, 2005.
[10] H.E. Aitink and E. Hovenkamp, Bridging the Continents in Wartime: Important
Airmail Routes 1939-45, SLTW, Enschede, 2005.
[11] O.R.J. Lee, Australia and New Zealand to Great Britain (Wartime
Services, 1939 – 1945), The Aero Field, pp 7 – 10, Jan-Feb, 1962.
[12] Clark, R., New Zealand Air Mail to the United Kingdom and Canada via
the United States in 1940-41: Was it flown within the United States?,
The Kiwi, vol 58, pp 128-133, November 2009.
[13] Legg, W.H., The Pan American Airways Service New Zealand to
the United Kingdom, 1940 – 1941″,
Air Mail News, vol 44, pp 35 – 36, May 2001
[14] Legg, W.H., The Reason for the “Australia –
New Zealand – Canada Superscriptions, Air Mail News, vol 44, p 77, August 2001
[15] Report on the Progress of Civil Aviation 1939 – 1945,
Civil Aviation Authority, edited by John Wilson, 2009.
(available from West Africa Study Circle at:
www.wasc.org.uk/NewFiles/CAA%20report%20complete.pdf)
[16] GPO Overseas Confidential Mail Branch Weekly Reports 48-50, August 1940,
POST 56/76, Royal Mail Archive.
[17] GPO Overseas Confidential Mail Branch Weekly Reports 89, 24 May 1941,
POST 56/77, Royal Mail Archive.
[18] Startup, R.M., Postal Censorship in New Zealand 1939-1945, The Mail-Coach, Journal of the Postal History Society of New Zealand, vol 23, no 6, August 1987.
[19] Australian Newspapers 1803-1954,
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