Civil Censorship Study Group

I have collected terminal mail from Jamaica for some time but have just began to dip my toes into the world of transit mail through Jamaica
It appears one way to decide if a letter was censored in Jamaica was to take the date posted and the date censored and this would allow you to declare that a letter was censored in Jamaica
My problem is I have been unable to find any book or study paper in regard to how long the flying boat took in general between each stop on both FAM 5 and FAM 6 if the time between each stop was known then you could add theses times to get the total flight time to in my case Jamaica
with regards Steve

Hi,

I think that this

It appears one way to decide if a letter was censored in Jamaica was to take the date posted and the date censored and this would allow you to declare that a letter was censored in Jamaica

is fundamentally wrong. The cover could have transited Jamaica without being censored there. I think the correct way is to see if it has a recognized Jamaica censor device. Jamaica censor devices are pretty thoroughly documented in the relevant section n of the CCSG catalog.

Dann

Hi,
Re Jamaican censorship. The most recent reference is Volume 9 of the Jamaican Encyclopedia of Philately, Military Mail which also covers civil censorship. As noted, the D or ID on the censor label is a good clue. For labels without a D or ID code, look to see where it is going - other than the UK, it was probably done in Jamaica - a list of the known censors is also in the book. For those going to the UK, look for the censor number and the type of label. Some mail wasn't censored in Jamaica but caught in the UK

The time in-transit is goofy - some mail got out right away, but some, especially at the start of the war was delayed up to a month or longer. From what I can see, the actual transit time took about 2-3 days depending on direction and the frequency of flights. Northbound, there usually was an RON (overnight) in Cienfuegos Cuba, southbound, the same. The frequency of flights ranged from 2 a week to daily later on.

Another problem was who was doing the censoring. The Jamaican censor service (blue labels, then vermilion/carmine, and finally PC 90's until Oct 42) ; the Imperial Censor Service using PC90's from 1940 onward; and M.I.5 which used the octagonal hand-stamps. M.I.5 also looked at covers already censored by either service. You can find M.I.5 stamps with Caymans or Turks numbers (D40-42, D43) on Jamaican origin covers. Make life interesting!

Regards,
Ray

Thank you all for your very prompt and fantastic replies and he problems of me thinking simple in regards to flight times between ports of call I did not consider the variations that can exist regards steve

Once again thank you for your replys and the potential problems using time flown as an aide to proving if a letter had gone through Jamaica Perhaps my comments were unclear all I was wondering is how long does it take on a normal flight to say go from Bolivia to Jamaica for example not the frequency or potential delays the Encyclopedia of Jamaican Philately does indicate that time posted and time censored could be used as a guide to asist in deciding if a letter had been checked in Jamaica