July 1940 earliest dated WWII British army postal concession in Palestine cover

Description: Landmark Palestine WWII military mail - New earliest known WWII British army postal concession in Palestine: 22 July 1940 postmarked stampless surface mail cover sent from Field Post Office FPO 122 (TULKARM) to a Lieutenant-Colonel A. L. Hadow in KEMSING Britain, tied by single strike of the FPO postmark & boxed censor mark #1168 with officer's endorsement signature (it's actually the sender's own name - permitted by regulation for officers to 'frank' their own mail per 'General Headquarters Middle East field censorship regulations 1940' regulation 3 provision xi; see further below) - the censor handstamp & number may actually have been issued personally to Hadow; slit open at top. Docketed arrival date on front 12 Oct. 1940: the cover was sent by surface mail in the period after Italy entered the war and the Mediterranean sea routes were closed - carried by sea convoy around Africa northwards to the UK. Significant postal history: none of the specialist literature sources (Proud/Benians/Adlerblum/Boyle, even the Palestine Standing Order Book #125 for 1939-1942) provides a date from which troops in Palestine could send [surface] mail home free of postage & no official mention of the commencement of this concession was published in the press. The local press (Palestine Post of 25 & 26 March) reported that a free postage concession would only be granted if the region was deemed an "active theater" and that it was unlikely that such a concession would be granted to Palestine if not also granted to her neighbors, like Egypt. Per Benians (p.5) the free mail concession began in Egypt on 1 May 1941. Here, for Palestine, the likely reason for the postal concession was Italy's Western Desert Campaign, her bombing attack on Tel Aviv & invasion of Egypt, during June-September 1940 - though oddly this cover and others dated in 1940 are not endorsed "On Active Service". This cover is part of a larger series of letters in the "Hadow correspondence", held by this cataloguer, sent by a Lieut.-Col. E. A. Hadow of the Royal Artillery to relatives in Kemsing. As with other covers in this correspondence there is a faint comment in blue crayon at the top of the cover, apparently the addressee's attribution of the location of the sender, apparently erased. Until now the earliest known postage-free cover was dated 30 August 1940, from FPO 122 in Tulkarm: the postal concession applied only to surface mail, not to air mail or domestic mail in Palestine, and owing to the difficulties the developing war imposed on sea transport army surface mail covers of this period are much scarcer than postage prepaid army air mail covers. --- Most of our merchandise ships out from Israel | orders are combined | additional items are charged 75c: DOMESTIC services available are Registered mail (default) and courier mail. Please contact us if you desire courier mail. BUYERS IN ISRAEL: eBay does not recognize Israel as being a "domestic" mailing destination - please contact us to be invoiced and charged $5 for registered mail. --- OVERSEAS services available are Priority ECO Post registered airmail (default - $15 flat fee) and express EMS mail (3-day / 5-day to-door delivery - $40 flat fee). These options can be selected on check-out. We recognize that the shipping overseas is expensive - only ECO Post shows tracking up to delivery; for less expensive purchases on the understanding of the customer that tracking is not available we can user $5 standard registered mail overseas - please contact us so we can invoice you at this rate. --- Prospective buyers in countries without postal relations with Israel can receive orders via a third country. Please contact us for this option. --- To see higher end specialized philatelic items + materials from countries which cannot be displayed on ebay, add d o t com to our our handle name

Price: 899 USD

Location: Jerusalem Israel

End Time: 2024-10-02T17:01:47.000Z

Shipping Cost: 12 USD