Page 82 - The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia

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Type 3 Type 4.
tion indicated origin in that State that the Experimental P.O. K—77
cancellation was used in Sharjah.

Three reasons have been advanced for the supposed use of the
Experimental P.O. cancellations in Dubai and in Shaijah. First, as a
wartime security measure to disguise the origin of mail; and, second,
for use on Forces Mail. Both these can be discounted by the fact that
so many of the covers otherwise bear details of the sender’s address
without any attempt having been made to obliterate it when the
letter was censored, and by the fact that all the known covers come
from civilian sources and are to civilian addressees.

The third reason suggested is that they \yere used over the
period when Dubai was being upgraded from Branch Office. Cert­
ainly, the Dubai P.O. was upgraded on or about April 1st, 1942, and
the Experimental P.O. cancellations could have been in concurrent use
with the Branch Office canceller (Type 2: known used as late as
25.2.42) and the new Sub Office cancellers (Types 5 and 6: known
used from 1.4.42 and 1.7.42). The Postal Regulations covering the
establishment of Experimental P.Os would also explain the consecu­
tive uses of K—77 (May—July 1941) and K—46 (October 1941 — June
1942) However, the later use of K-46 on August 28th, 1942 on a
.
cover from Shaijah falls outside the assessment period ending,
according to Postal Regulations, on July 31, 1942.
The K—46 canceller is also known used (June 22nd and Oct. 15th,
1943) on covers from Paiforce, which were censored at Karachi; and on
a front bearing a G.B. KG VI lOd. (May 19th, 1945) addressed to
Bombay and also censored at Karachi; but none of these has any

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