Curious About This Ve-Day Cover

The following cover caught my eye for a couple of reasons:



First, I have a modest collection of VE-Day and VJ-Day covers and will add to it from time to time. Second, I am always on the lookout for postally used examples of C25a.

What I am curious about is how this cover came to be. I have assumed, with other WW II patriotic event covers, that when a significant event occurred specialists in producing such covers would rush to get a current postmark on blank covers and then produce a corresponding cachet. That doesn't seem as likely in this case. I'm pretty sure that Crosby must have done this from time to time, but the postmarks are then either San Pedro or Navy cancels that he probably had ready access to. This postmark is for an APO that at the time was in the Philippines (Luzon).

I can only think of two ways this cover might have been produced, and I'm not sure if either is plausible: (1) Crosby produced the cover ahead of the actual victory in Europe so that it was available when the time came; (2) the cover was produced after VE-Day and somebody at APO 919 had the ability to backdate the postmark.

Of the two, the first seems the more plausible (and ethical).

Anyone else have a better explanation? FWIW, the Crosby cachet is cataloged by Sherman.

Basil

There is a third possibility - an uncacheted cover was postmarked honestly on May 8 and then after the fact a cachet was printed onto it. My guess, though, is that since the cachet is generic and does not include a date or anything specific is that these cachets were printed either locally or in the US in anticipation of the surrender which was pretty obviously imminent at some point weeks or even months prior to the surrender, and then they were canceled with honest dates.

It would have been 10:41 am, or 11:41 am, May 7 Phillipines time (2:41 am, May 7 Flensburg time), that Keitel announced Germany's agreement to surrender to all of the allied forces on May 8th at 23:00 hours (Flensburg time), I believe.

I think both of your conjectures are equally plausible.

APO 919 was in the Pacific. Jim Forte's site says Philippines as one location, which makes sense for 1945.

Now, is the handwriting known to be Crosby's or a cohort? The return address is APO 73 which Forte's site says is the Philippines. So it's very possible that another sender bought the envelope(s) and had this one mailed from APO 919. So with luck, we should be able to find the cachet used from other places.

If sent by Crosby (though I think not), then I think 1) is plausible. The drive to Berlin took enough time to prepare covers in advance and send them to contacts to hold until the day.

As for ethics, there are probably none when it comes to event and first day covers, much more so now. I trust WWII and earlier covers to be more legit than later ones. For the longest time now, FDCs are not cancelled on the first day only. USPS currently gives 30 days grace or more on event/pictorial cancels.

Thanks for the replies.

Kimo, I am not sure what you mean here when you say this is a "generic" cachet. "Germany Surrenders to the Allies" is pretty specific to VE-Day, and this cover is cataloged in Sherman's catalog of WW II patriotic covers. That doesn't mean that the cachet could not have been applied later; as I indicated, I think that was typical of WW II event covers, even by producers such as Fidelity or Fluegel. But the ones I am sure where this is the case always have, to my recollection, Washington, DC, postmarks. (Well, maybe some Victory, VT postmarked covers fall into this category.) But against the view that the cachet was applied after the fact is the way this cover shows all the marks of having been postally used. The return address appears to have been written as if the cachet was already there. This just doesn't look like a cover postmarked in the Philippines and then sent to Crosby for application of a cachet later. I'm reasonably confident the cachet was already on the cover when it was addressed, censored, and postmarked.

bookbndrbob,

There are two dates celebrated as VE-Day, both May 7, and May 8. The act of military surrender was signed on May 7th in Reims, France and on May 8th in Berlin, Germany. VE-Day covers with either are easy to find, though May 8 are probably more common.

hy-brasil,

I'm no expert, but the handwriting does not look the same as on some Crosby covers that I think bear his handwriting. I just now took a look on ebay and see two more examples of this cachet:




I don't think these are "Crosby-serviced" covers. As I wrote earlier covers I'm pretty sure that he serviced typically have Naval or San Pedro, CA postmarks.

The widespread existence (geographically) of covers with this cachet further reinforces, in my mind, the likelihood that the covers were prepared and sold ahead of time. Wikipedia claims that the term "VE Day" is known as early as September 1944. Certainly by early 1945 everyone knew that it was just a matter of time before Germany would capitulate. So I don't see why this couldn't be the case.

Again, thanks to all.

Basil

When I say they are "generic" cachets I mean that these could have been printed long before the actual VE day. For example, in early June, 1944 the Americans captured Rome and essentially ended the Italians as an effective part of the Axis. They began bombing Eastern Germany as of that date and moving north to create a southern front attacking the Germans. Within a couple of days of that was the Allied invasion at Normandy where the Americans and British gained and held a foothold in France opening a western front attacking Germany. And also in June 1944 the Russians started a major offensive taking Byelorussia and driving towards Poland to create a major eastern front for the German army to defend against. By September of 1944 the Americans and British were crossing From France into Germany itself. It was very clear that the war against Germany had been won by then and it was just a matter of mopping up the German forces - the only real question was what day would the surrender come and how to minimize losses of men in the process. Germany finally surrendered to the western allies on May 7, 1945 and then to the Soviets on May 9, 1945. There is nothing in this cachet that says anything about the date or where the surrender happened or any other detail. A cachet maker could have confidently designed and printed these up with reasonable expectations anytime after June, 1944 but with great confidence anytime after September 1944 and had them in the hands of willing personnel many months before the formal surrender.

Kimo, after I thought about it for a while (and before you replied), I began to surmise that you meant something like that. I have an exhibit on the life of Hap Arnold, so I'm well read on WW II, at least from an airman's perspective. In his biography he says that shortly after D-Day he and George Marshall were so confident of success in Europe that they decided to take a 10 day fishing trip on horseback into the Sierra Nevadas. (FDR was reluctant for them to be out of touch with DC for so long, so they had to take a radioman along.) So I think this "generic" aspect to the cachet fits well with the likelihood that it was printed well before V-E day, unlike many other V-E Day covers which mention the date, and were likely applied to blank covers postmarked the day of event.

This must have been a frequent event, philatelists (or representative for companies like Fluegel) going to the DC (usually) PO and getting hundreds of blank covers postmarked and handed back. So this cover has a certain "cachet" about it to me, being postmarked the day of event so far from the philatelic center of WW II patriotic covers. Kind of like my growing collection of C25a and C26 FDC's on patriotic covers, rather than the more common cachets produced specifically for these stamps. Ordinary people taking a little bit of extra effort to memorialize the important events of the day and time.

Basil