24 Whole Number 227
January 1942. Looking at the rank of the
sender, the date and the form of address, it
is again a reasonable assumption that this
was a recent marriage. Both of these
couples appear to have been part of that
early rush of marriages. The envelope in
figure 3 was mailed in July 1945 from a
Merchant Mariner to his wife, and from the
address, she was one of the many wives
affected by the domestic housing shortage.
She was living with others, possibly her
parents. The sender’s ship, the SS Santa
Margarita of the Grace Line, was part of
many Atlantic convoys, to both England
and North Africa carrying everything from
beer to bombs while under attack by Ger-
man U-boats. Note also that the sender had
to use 1st class postage. There were two
rate reductions given to armed forces per-
sonnel in WWII. The first was a conces-
sion airmail rate of $0.06 per half ounce
outside of the continental US (CONUS),
and the second was free 1
st
class mail in or
outside of the CONUS. While the airmail
concession was extended to a number of
civilian organizations sending and receiv-
Figure 1 is an envelope and a wedding congratulations card sent to a
ing mail thru the military postal systems,
newlywed couple in January 1942. This wedding may have been a
the 1
st
class free frank was not given to
reaction to the groom’s military call up and training camp assignment
anyone besides uniformed personnel.
following the US declaration of war.
Several surveys taken during the war re-
vealed that the average military person
rize that this wedding was a reaction to the groom’s
wrote one letter per day, every day. As has been re-
call up and move to a training camp in the month
ported elsewhere, the military always has recognized
immediately following the US declarations of war on
the impact of mail on morale, so there were great ef-
Japan, Germany and Italy. In the
first half of 1942, the first wartime
deployment of troops to overseas
locations occurred, including
Great Britain and Australia. The
cover in figure 2 was from a hus-
band in the 34
th
Infantry Division,
which was then located in North-
ern Ireland, to his wife. The 34
th
Infantry was drawn from several
National Guard units that were fed-
eralized in early 1941 and had
completed basic training before
December 1941. It was the first di-
vision deployed overseas, starting
with sailings from the New York Figure 2 was from a new soldier husband in the 34
th
Infantry Division, located
Port of Embarkation (POE) in mid-
in Northern Ireland. The 34
th
ID was the first division deployed overseas,
sailing from New York (POE) beginning in January 1942.
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