Page 131 - The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia

ZS JAN
1947

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Type 11.

A new canceller (Type 11 — which was not a machine cancellation)
was in use by early October 1941; and Kuwait Post Office apparently
resumed direct mail despatches to Bombay and Karachi from October
31st. The Basrah route remained closed, however, until early 1942; and
it seems likely that mail for U.K. continued to be despatched by
Diplomatic Bag for a period of at least eight months. The telegraph
line was still out of use in early 1942 and telegrams from Kuwait to Iraq
were still routed via Bahrain.
!

PASSED BY CENSOR
KUWAIT
'

Kuwait Censor hand-stamp known used from February 1942.

The first letter actually sent by post to the U.K. via Basrah was
carried by hand and posted there on February 18th, 1942, just before
the mail service between Kuwait and Basrah was reopened. It bears the
earliest known strike of the PASSED BY CENSOR. KUWAIT mark in
purple and was franked with Iraqi stamps. By early March things were
back to normal and letters from Kuwait to UK bore unoverprinted
Indian stamps and passed through Basrah where they were transit-marked.
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