Value Of Knowledge: A United States First - Looking Beyond The Obvious: Show Your Hidden Gem Covers

My full title was at first, "Value of Knowledge: A United States First -- Looking Beyond The Obvious in Clipper Airmail (Postage Due) Covers." But while I did place this in the BOB section as my examples air airmail and postage due, both back of the book areas, I do not want to limit the contributions to this thread. If there are more additions as requested not limited to BOB covers, I will ask the moderator to move the thread into a more appropriate category at that time.


Here are two recent covers sold on ebay to the same buyer, a friend. From a postal rate point of view, they are similar, both one rate underpaid Clipper Airmail covers with a C20 Transpacific Airmail stamp from 1935. Both flying west from Hawaii to the mainland. One ( ebay item number:276719757941) opened at a dollar and sold for $9.38 + $1.60 S&H, and the other ( ebay item number:196792959274) opened at $29.95 selling with only one bid plus $8.50 S&H (from Canada).

The less expensive cover was in great shape, the more expensive cover had a corner issue. From an exhibiting point of view the cheaper one was the smaller cover close to a #8 and the pricier one larger a #10, normally covers which require less real estate on a page sell for more, all other things being equal.

This is the less expensive item:




The title description was, "GOLDPATH: US AIRMAIL 1937 HONOLULU,HI.DUE25,25C,SLOGAN CV629_P05" with no additional details in the listing text. It received four bids from four bidders.

This is the higher priced cover.



The title description was, "HONOLULU Hawaii 1935 Cover to USS Indianapolis. Philippine Clipper. Postage Due" with the added text description information, "as pictured; small loss area at upper left corner." It received one bid from one bidder.

For this cover, the destination of the USS Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser, adds some value to the cover due to the later historic notoriety of the USS Indianapolis from which story and movies were based. It the USS Indianapolis delivered the inner components of both atom bombs used in Japan to end WWII to the US Airbase on Tinian in the Mariana Islands. On its return, traveled to Guam and then on the Leyte Gulf it was sunk by submarine on July 30, 1945 with many survivors, about 900 safe in the water out of the crew that day of 1195. Alas, only 316 were eventually rescued days later with all other dying adrift as the US Navy was unaware of the sinking until three and a half days later. This alone justifies the higher price for this cover even with the slight corner flaw.

HOWEVER...There is more about this cover which should drive the price much higher:

While the ship from 1935 continued its voyage into history, the more interesting aspect of this cover is its recipient, Hawaiian native Ensign Gordon P. (Pai'ea) Chung-Hoon

who was granted the rank of Ensign in May 1934 after graduating from the US Naval Academy as the first Asian Naval Academy graduate and assigned to the USS Indianapolis. Even before graduation in 1933 he made quite a national name for himself as a halfback and punter for the Naval Academy football team. He was later recognized as one of the 1933 season football heroes by Sports Illustrated.

While a family member, not his father, sent the letter to the USS Indianapolis where he did receive it, he did not stay on the Indianapolis. Rising in rank he was assigned to different ships, including the USS Arizona at a Lieutenant. While so assigned, he survived the Sunday 12-7-1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He was on shore that morning, due to a weekend pass, trying his best to return to his ship but was prevented from doing so by the bombing. Of the assigned crew of the USS Arizona 1177 died and 335 survived including Chung-Hoon.

It is my opinion that he felt some level of survivor's guilt for not being on his ship. This may have driven his later actions.

As time passed he continued to rise in rank to Commander Chung-Hoon at which time one of his assignments was the command of the USS Sigsbee. The Sigsbee was hit and severely damaged by a kamikaze plane. With one engine lost, the second damaged such that it's full speed was a pitiful now 5 knots, no steering control and taking on water, Commander Chung-Hoon struggled to control his ship, while directing punishing antiaircraft fire and damage control units which saved the ship. After that April 14, 1945 battle, the ship was so damaged that Admiral William Halsey, Jr. directed the ship to be scuttled. Declining to do so saying, "No, I have kids on here that can't swim and I'm not putting them in the water. I'll take her back."

And Commander Chung-Hoon did so while burying the ship's 23 dead at sea during the return. A crewman observed, "I often remember that the only man tough enough not to duck, was also the only man tender enough to cry."

Gordon P. Chung-Hoon was awarded the Navy Cross and Silver Star for his action while in command of the USS Sigsbee. The Navy Cross is the award only second to the Medal of Honor. I am forced to wonder if the Commander only received the Navy Cross due to his Asian heritage similar to the lower level medals given the Japanese Americans for their actions. That slight was eventually corrected in 2000 by reviewing and upgrading the awards previously provided including many up to a Medal of Honor. Perhaps if Gordon Chung-Hoon was still alive (died 1979) fellow Hawaiian, Senator Daniel Inouye (Captain, US Army, 442nd Regimental Combat Team) whose Distinguished Service Cross was upgrade to a Medal of Honor in 2000, the Senator would have reviewed Chung-Hoon's Navy Cross award.

Chung-Hoon continued to rise in rank to earn yet another first, the first Asian America Flag Officer having reached the rank of rear admiral (lower half) - one star- on his rise to his final of Rear Admiral a two star rank.


His name honors an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, USS Chung-Hoon.


Here the buyer looked beyond the simple or limited description to find a real philatelic and historical gem. While a picture may be worth a thousand words looking beyond the picture may find many more words, important to the story words.


I, AND LIKELY OTHER SCF MEMBERS, WOULD WELCOME OTHER COVERS OR PHILATELIC MATERIAL WHO STORY AND VALUE IS NOT OBVIOUS AT FIRST GLANCE.







Edit: Spelling

Interesting story, especially this close to Veterans' Day

The lower priced item actually closed on Veteran's Day. The Chung-Hoon cover the next day.

My father's birthday is November 10th so I am always reminded of Veteran's Day as he was floating over to storm the beaches of mainland Japan when the bombs thankfully ended the war.

My grandfather always got quiet on Veteran's Day as well as Memorial Day. He survived WWI as an observation balloon machine gunner, but his brother was killed in action and buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The only story he would ever tell me even if I asked, was answering what the blue dot on his arm was. He was getting a tattoo when there was an air raid but he had sobered up by the time the air rand was over and did not go back.

Edit: My most favorite ebay seller, afewgoodstamps (Dave), is a retired US combat veteran, retired as in receiving a military pension. His only son was a US Iraq war combat veteran who is honored by the nation on Memorial Day.

Edit: To add a detail Navy Created History of then Captain Chung-Hoon done in 1958 :https://www.history.navy.mil/conten...Redacted.pdf

Interestingly this history is in a redacted form. Later, I may try posting it, busy now. A friend sent me the link while we were discussing to cover.

In relation to the Ensign Chung-Hoon cover described and shown above by Parcelpostguy, there is another story found in the words typed on the face of the cover "U.S. Air-Mail via Philippine Clipper". In the early 1930's Pan American Airlines wanted a plane that could fly 3,000 miles (long enough to reach Europe or Hawaii) while carrying a payload equal to its own weight, and the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company designed a plane that met the airline's needs, the M-130. Three of these clippers were built and delivered in 1935 which were eventually named the China Clipper, Philippine Clipper, and Hawaiian Clipper. The Philippine Clipper was only about 1 month old (delivered to Pan Am November 13, 1935) when it carried the above cover from Honolulu enroute to San Pedro, California.

The unfortunate part of the Philippine Clipper story came on the morning of January 21, 1943. Flight 1104 left Pearl Harbor on Oahu in the Hawaiian Island's the evening of January 20 with a Pan Am crew of nine and 10 passengers, all U.S. Naval officers, including Rear Admiral Robert H. English, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Submarine Fleet. Nearing it's destination in northern California, but off course, the aircraft encountered poor weather, heavy rain, dense clouds and fog. The pilot descended to a lower altitude trying to find better flying conditions, and in the process, ended up putting the aircraft into the side of a mountain, killing all aboard. It took a week to locate the wreckage.

In the mid 1970s, I bought a box of mainly # 10s, from a Latherow's in Arlington, VA house book auction. I had just flipped through it and saw a number of Prexie's on air and registered covers.
It turned out to be a gold mine. It was a box of covers that apparantly came from someone who had access to material from a 30 year purging of files of mail sent to the Pentagon from 1940 to 1945. Most all the registered ones where backstamped with a red large cds simply stating WAR and the date.
Kick myself now. Sold most of them if not all at various times, but mostly at my store between 1991 and 2017.
I am sure many had a story to tell. If I ever get my desk top computer and scanner up, what I do have is an interesting collection of covers from WWII from a member of a German, mainly Catholic Bavarian, Wermacht Unit of 800 men, that defected to the French in 1939, after the start of WWII. They were sent first to POW camps outside Paris, and then most were allowed to join the French Foreign Legion in North Africa and ended up fighting Rommel.

Copied here is the history generated in 1958 for which I provided a link above.

I want to point out that one's grades and class ranking does not necessarily correlate to one's career or personal performance, military or private sector. In my first post I mentioned he was a noted outstanding national reputation football player for Navy. However as you read the history below, you will see reference to cadet Gordon being an even more gift baseball player who did not play baseball due to some academic struggles. Like his first assigned ship which continued its voyage into a noted history, cadet Gordon also continued his path into a noted history as well, while overcoming obstacles he was confronted by. The below history covers to his naval rank as Captain. The following year he retire and was promoted to Rear Admiral, the first Asian American Naval Flag Officer.

Great stuff, Parcelpost. Thanks for posting.

As to the crash of the Philippines Clipper for those of us who live in this neck of the woods or visit the large wine region here, I though I would give more detail.

While the flight plan was to land at the San Francisco Airport that did not occur. For whatever reason the pilot flew northward trying to battle the storm. While the claimed cause of the crash was pilot error with a claim that he was lost. Yes, flying into cliff face qualifies as pilot error but there is a bit more to this. Oh, The Captain of the flight had over 4950 hours of flight time.

The plane was found between the towns of Boonville and Ukiah, CA in the southern Mendocino and northern Mayacamas mountain range transition. It was generally flying north at the time. In the map below, on the right is a large body of water, Clear Lake, to which it was believed to be the destination of the flying boat at which to land.


Here on the Northern California coast we get rain storms with a rainy season listed as October 15th through April 15th. The crash was in late January. As described by witnesses, it was an extremely bad rain storm coming in from the Pacific. Such storms can have clouds from ground level and up thousands of feet with no break, especially where the topography forces a lifting of the storm's air mass. Then there is zero cloud deck to fly under. Additionally we call these just rain storms here. Yet by measures used elsewhere, the winds in some of these storm are commonly over 74 MPH. Ridge top wind routinely break 100 MPH. The threshold for hurricane wind speed begins at 74 MPH, three digit wind speeds are category two and higher hurricanes speeds. Top speed recorded in California was 199 MPH and just last rainy season a 190 MPH gust was recorded in Northern California. During than early 2024 storm, wind here (I am at 350 elevation and sheltered) exceeded 70 MPH with wind over 100 MPH only a crow fly mile or so away, at the surface, in several locations.

In 1943, there was instrument flying when there was no visibility, but such was far less advance that today's instrument ability.

It was nearly a year ago that I began collecting U.S. postal history, and for the first 3 months I collected only postcards, which at the time seemed comfortable to me, but the urge to move into other types of covers quickly evolved, as there was a whole world of new directions to go with other kinds of postal history. Some of the first of these "other" covers I found very interesting was WW2 related items, specifically covers originating in Pearl Harbor, where the U.S. Pacific Fleet was based. The cover shown here is one that I found on ebay early this last spring, and at first glance didn't seem to be anything special, just a small size censored envelope being mailed in early 1942 to an insurance company in Washington, D.C. When I looked at the name of the sender, I had a feeling that I had seen that name somewhere before, but then again, maybe I was just hoping it was someone important, but when I read the printed lines below the name, it hit me. I immediately Googled the sender's name and my hopes were confirmed, it was the man who was the commanding officer of the battleship Arizona from Feb. 1940 until Feb. 1941, so at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, Train had already been transfered from the Arizona to his new position as a Chief of Staff - Battle Force, whose purpose was to help command all of the Pacific Fleet's fighting force.

During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Train took charge of directing Naval ships in the harbor, which resulted in minimizing damage to some ships, and keeping the harbor from getting blocked. For his conduct during the attack, Train received multiple medals for combat valor and heroism from Admiral Chester Nimitz.

The beauty of postal history, is that there are always "hidden gems" out there waiting to be discovered, and this is certainly one of mine.

What is also interesting to me is that the cover that jmgi2022 posts above are still available to be found because even in war, people have to keep their insurance paid, pay local property taxes and the like, and other individual responsibilities, and were able to do so. Furthermore the recepients retained the correspondence and envelopes in many cases in their business files to be found years later and appreciated by people like us for both their historic significance and postal history.

An ebay find for just over $10, delivered. Cover sent by Medal of Honor recipient Adm. Jonas Howard Ingram (1887-1952):


There are many bios for him online including Wikipedia, but his FindAGrave one is shorter:


(The cover is sent to retired Gen. Leigh Robinson Gignilliat, Sr., long time superintendant of Culver Military Academy, 1910-39.)

Postmarks and postcard of the U.S.S. Jonas Ingram, named for him: