Civil Censorship Study Group

The cover shown in the scans was sent from Japanese-occupied French Indochina on 27 November 1941.




It was censored in Madras with a CCSG Ty. 5/Madras tape (recorded July 41 - June 43) tied by a Ty. 3A handstamp (recorded May 40 - Dec 41)

The cover was docketed for airmail via Bangkok, which point it presumably had cleared before December 8, when Japanese forces arrived there. But it did not arrive in Karakudi until 24January 1942. That it did arrive, and was censored with a device last recorded used in December 1941, suggests that it was held by censorship for a period of more than a month -- unless its transit from Bangkok was overland (in which case a shorter period of detention still would have been involved, unless the use date of the 3A/Madras handstamp can be pushed into January).

Can anyone shed any light on this?

I don't think censorship was responsible for most of the delay here. The BOAC flights had already stopped calling at Bangkok (I think in October) so the cover would have been sent from Saigon by sea to Singapore instead. The delays caused by restricted airmail capacity, exacerbated by the Japanese advances and the disruption they caused, will have added to the normal delays through censorship, which were already substantial. I find that it could take over a week for letters to and from Southern India to get on or off the flights at Calcutta during this time.