Postal evidence of civilian censorship in World War II tells interesting stories

US stamp notes by John M. Hotchner

The censorship system during World War II was complicated. There were numerous reasons why it was not possible to send material abroad. This column highlights an interesting example that Jerry Johnson of Kennewick, Washington, recently shared with us.

This envelope, sent in early January 1943, was “returned to sender by the censor” after being checked. Curiously, the reason for the return was the inclusion of stamps. The censor had added the note shown here to the bottom left of the envelope. The note reads: “Postage stamps may not be sent to any place outside the United States without the permission of the Censorship Office. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Philatelic Control Unit, US Postal Censorship, 244 Seventh Avenue, New York, New York.”

Censorship began within days of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, because the military had already studied British media censorship practices before the United States entered the war. So a plan was in place.

On December 18, 1941, after Congress passed the First War Powers Act (Public Law 354), President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Office of Censorship, which was to be run by civilians.

The Office of Censorship worked with the Post Office and the War and Navy Departments to establish procedures. The latter two departments were responsible for censorship within their own organizations.

There were many other reasons, besides the philatelic content, why a letter could be returned to the sender: it contained information potentially useful to the enemy; it was addressed to a prisoner of war and came from a person apparently unknown to the prisoner of war; it was addressed to an enemy or a hostile-occupied country; it was addressed to a prisoner of the Japanese and did not follow the form prescribed by them; it had no return address, and much more.

Since the Pacific was a huge war zone and most civilian mail overseas went through New York, it is no surprise that the headquarters of the Office of Censorship was located there. However, there were also branches in other major cities.

Some problematic mail was routinely sent to New York, including mail containing philatelic material. In late 1942, a separate body called the Philatelic Control Unit was established in New York. The unit later opened branches in other locations, but that had not yet happened when this letter was sent from San Francisco to the postmaster in “Nukua Loa, Oceanica,” now known as Nuku’alofa, Tonga, in the South Pacific.

But why were stamps banned? The reason was financial control. Since stamps had intrinsic value, the idea was to prevent enemies of the United States from exploiting the stamp trade as a substitute for money to help finance their enemies’ war efforts.

The end of civilian censorship during World War II came with President Harry S. Truman’s directive to the Director of the Bureau of Censorship on August 15, 1945, ordering an immediate end to censorship of all international communications. The Bureau was officially closed on November 15, 1945.

But during the four years that civil censorship was in force, a large number of markings were placed on incoming and outgoing mail. For today’s collectors, this is a fascinating area of ​​collecting and research.

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