Canada_ Great War APO - mystery solved!
Nov 12, 2018 5:10:44 GMT
Londonbus1, Mick, and 4 more like this
Post by jamesw on Nov 12, 2018 5:10:44 GMT
So here's a curious one for this the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War.
In 2011 I posted this 1916 cut out Army Post Office post mark on SCF asking anyone for info. If I've posted it here somewhere, I couldn't find it, so excuse me if I'm repeating myself.
Anyway, at that time, our friend wt1 had posted a similar example he found on postalhistory.com which said that the APO S22 was located in Etaples France. Good enough for me, I was thrilled.
For context, I inherited this APO in an envelope full of old tattered stamps from my Dad, many years ago. He never told me the origins of this piece, and I had no ideas.
Today I'm looking it up again (I'm not sure why) but I found this article on postalhistorycanada.net, and I discover that the APO S22, which was a Canadian postal outlet, part of the British Expeditionary Forces was actually located in Harfleur, near La Havre in the north of France. S22 was located at Harfleur from August 1 1916 until May 18 1917 (there's an obvious typo in the chart in the article regarding this last year) which includes the December 11 1916 date stamp shown on the APO. S22 did move to Etaples as of May 19 1917 and remained there until after the end of the war.
Now this may seem to be small potatoes, in the grand scheme of things, I think it's pretty awesome to actually discover the origins of this little piece of paper, seven years after the fact, and on this anniversary.
So that said, there's the article, which may be of use to some you military postal history folks...
www.postalhistorycanada.net/php/Library/Books/Webb/Webb_content/Chapter7.pdf
...and another website about the Le Havre and Harfleur military bases...
www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battlefields/gazetteer-of-the-western-front/gazetteer-of-the-western-front-le-havre-and-harfleur-base/
This second site even includes a photo of the Harfleur British camp in March of 1916, before the Canadian post office was set up.
Happy Anniversary.
In 2011 I posted this 1916 cut out Army Post Office post mark on SCF asking anyone for info. If I've posted it here somewhere, I couldn't find it, so excuse me if I'm repeating myself.
Anyway, at that time, our friend wt1 had posted a similar example he found on postalhistory.com which said that the APO S22 was located in Etaples France. Good enough for me, I was thrilled.
For context, I inherited this APO in an envelope full of old tattered stamps from my Dad, many years ago. He never told me the origins of this piece, and I had no ideas.
Today I'm looking it up again (I'm not sure why) but I found this article on postalhistorycanada.net, and I discover that the APO S22, which was a Canadian postal outlet, part of the British Expeditionary Forces was actually located in Harfleur, near La Havre in the north of France. S22 was located at Harfleur from August 1 1916 until May 18 1917 (there's an obvious typo in the chart in the article regarding this last year) which includes the December 11 1916 date stamp shown on the APO. S22 did move to Etaples as of May 19 1917 and remained there until after the end of the war.
Now this may seem to be small potatoes, in the grand scheme of things, I think it's pretty awesome to actually discover the origins of this little piece of paper, seven years after the fact, and on this anniversary.
So that said, there's the article, which may be of use to some you military postal history folks...
www.postalhistorycanada.net/php/Library/Books/Webb/Webb_content/Chapter7.pdf
...and another website about the Le Havre and Harfleur military bases...
www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battlefields/gazetteer-of-the-western-front/gazetteer-of-the-western-front-le-havre-and-harfleur-base/
This second site even includes a photo of the Harfleur British camp in March of 1916, before the Canadian post office was set up.
Happy Anniversary.