Posted by Alan Hakim on January 17, 2006 at 11:56:48 from 213.166.17.23 user awhakim.
In Reply to: Re: Signs of the Times - speedy postal service posted by Laurence Monkhouse on January 17, 2006 at 09:20:48:
Letters for Royal Navy ships used to be (still are?) addressed to "HMS Name, c/o GPO London". BFPO was for the Army and the RAF, and may not have been in existence in the 1920s.
What the Navy did with the letters once they got them from the GPO is a mystery to me. Air Mail was a rarity at that time. Laurence thinks mail would have gone mainly by train - but where to? Possibly Naples: I think there was a regular ship to Malta from there.
In 1957 I had a short stint doing the Forces mail run in Paphos, Cyprus. Army mail (airmail by then) arrived by an Auster plane from Nicosia HQ, but we had to call every day at the civilian Post Office to collect any mail for the Navy. Most days, there was nothing, but some days a ship would be in port, and there was mail. Clearly the Naval Postal Service knew their ships' wherabouts.
Reverting to the Wild Cat correspondence, it is clear from the book that letters went out to Malta, and the reply came by telegram. After all, we have the text of it. A week out, perhaps, and one day for the reply to get home.