Censor "skips"

I have a few international covers in my WWII collection, from varous
countries, which were not censored. In some cases, de facto censorship
was carried out via currency export control inspections, but other
covers show no evidence of even cursory censorship. I have two British
covers, for example: one posted from London to the U.S. on September
2, 1940, was not censored. Another, posted two days later from Dublin
to the U.S., was censored. Does anyone know whether censorship was
supposed to be universally applied, and some letters were missed, or
whether some sort of selective "profiling" was used. There's the
possibility, I suppose, that censorship was random.

Bob Ingraham
Vancouver

On Jul 31, 10:10*am, Bobstamp wrote:
I have a few international covers in my WWII collection, from varous
countries, which were not censored. In some cases, de facto censorship
was carried out via currency export control inspections, but other
covers show no evidence of even cursory censorship. I have two British
covers, for example: one posted from London to the U.S. on September
2, 1940, was not censored. Another, posted two days later from Dublin
to the U.S., was censored. Does anyone know whether censorship was
supposed to be universally applied, and some letters were missed, or
whether some sort of selective "profiling" was used. There's the
possibility, I suppose, that censorship was random.

Bob Ingraham
Vancouver

Bob:

That is interesting, considering that both Ireland and the USA
were NEUTRAL in 1940.

Blair

I imagine that different censoring operations used somewhat different
protocols, but most essentially operated as follows.

1. Watch lists of suspicious senders and addressees - always censored.
2. Safe lists - never censored (except when randomly selected).
3. Random selection.

I would also suspect that mail otiginating in Dublin would be viewed
with greater suspicion than mail originating in London.

Jay Carrigan change domain to mchsi
www.jaypex.com


In article
,
says...

I have a few international covers in my WWII collection, from varous
countries, which were not censored. In some cases, de facto censorship
was carried out via currency export control inspections, but other
covers show no evidence of even cursory censorship. I have two British
covers, for example: one posted from London to the U.S. on September
2, 1940, was not censored. Another, posted two days later from Dublin
to the U.S., was censored. Does anyone know whether censorship was
supposed to be universally applied, and some letters were missed, or
whether some sort of selective "profiling" was used. There's the
possibility, I suppose, that censorship was random.

Bob Ingraham
Vancouver

Bob, there were German spies in Ireland and the USA, hence the censorship of
mail to both countries.

Tony

"Blair (TC)" wrote in message
...
On Jul 31, 10:10 am, Bobstamp wrote:
I have a few international covers in my WWII collection, from varous
countries, which were not censored. In some cases, de facto censorship
was carried out via currency export control inspections, but other
covers show no evidence of even cursory censorship. I have two British
covers, for example: one posted from London to the U.S. on September
2, 1940, was not censored. Another, posted two days later from Dublin
to the U.S., was censored. Does anyone know whether censorship was
supposed to be universally applied, and some letters were missed, or
whether some sort of selective "profiling" was used. There's the
possibility, I suppose, that censorship was random.

Bob Ingraham
Vancouver

Bob:

That is interesting, considering that both Ireland and the USA
were NEUTRAL in 1940.

Blair

Well, OK, red face here in Vancouver. I intended to type "Belfast,"
but my fingers typed "Dublin". Yeesh! So, the original question still
stands. Why were some UK covers censored, and others not?

However, your references to Ireland/Eire are interesting, because the
Eire did indeed censor mail. I have at a few wartime covers in my
collection posted from Eire and censored by both the Irish and the
British. One of them is from a Canadian internee in an Irish
internment camp. (Being interned in Eire amounted to a holiday.
Internees, both German and Allied, had free access to alcohol within
the camps, and only had to sign a parole to leave camp for such
pleasant activities as pubbing, dancing, dinners with Irish families,
golfing, etc. Early in the war there was even an agreement between the
Allies and Eire that if any internees escaped, they would be returned.
— Grounded in Ei The Story of Two RAF Fliers Interned in
Ireland during World War II, by Ralph Keefer.

My apologies for inadvertently misleading you.

Bob