In the first years of WW 11, communications in the Armed Guard while overseas was terrible. Our ship sailed from Brooklyn on July 18, 1942 and our crew did not receive any mail until we arrived in Panama in May 1943 at which I received 105 letters and four packages.
There was no provisions for writing letters. Our gunnery officer even did not have a censors stamp.
While in Iran in Oct 1942 our officer contacted local representive of the US State Dept and explained our predicament not sending or receiving any mail. They indicated there was not much they could do. However, permission was given that each each member could write two leters, They would censor the letters and mail them back to states in their diplomatic pouch. My two letters did arrive sucessfully.
Later, the kinks were worked out and the sending and receiving mail of mail improved considerable.=
Needless to say my fiancee and parents were very concerned to the fact my Father wrote to the Naval Dept. Their response thatI was in the middle east and that no news was good news.
What else could one say.
When the mail started flowing, our mail was censored by our gunnery officer. Some times he would cut out part of the message, which they thought might be a code or information that would be of value to the enemy. So sometimes my fiancee and parents could not correctly decifer everything I was trying to convey.
i hope that I did not bore you with more info. than you requested.
Acy
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