by Ray Murphy » Mon Feb 27, 2017 1:46 am
Hi Steve,
Since no one has responded, I’ll give my interpretation.
We know that a number of censors have used this type label, JL48 in the Encyclopedia, vol. 9. Censors 4381, 4561, 5610, 6106 and 6129. In the Leeward Islands A Postal History Anthology, BCPSG Monograph 15, Ed Tweddell’s article “World War II Civil Censorship in Antigua” lists the British censor known on PC90's as 1044, 1238, 1894, 4113, 4179, 5212, and 6044. No matches, although 1044 and 1238 are definitely known to have worked in Jamaica while 1894 and 4113 may have worked in Jamaica. It is entirely possible all of them did, but we haven’t seen any covers from the missing ones with a D or ID marking. Wike noted that 6044 was in Trinidad, either before Aug. 1941 or after May 42, but was definitely in Antigua in between.
We believe that the labels were copied by local printers as needed, and numbers changed to fit the need, so we can’t say any of the first group were in Antigua, although they might have been, or it may be they needed more labels at the same time that one of the ones who had been in Antigua did, and the printer copied that one of the Antiguan labels as a master.
Since there was more to censorship than just reading the letters - the task of sorting was equally critical, along with checking against various lists, testing for covert inks, and copying wax seals, among other tasks, it is possible that these censors were in Antigua, but Tweddell or Paul or I haven’t seen one used, or that they didn’t actually use labels but performed other work. There is a letter in the CCSG Bulletin, April 2011, p93 that refers to some of the requirements in opening a station, in this case the joint San Juan operation, that lists some of the jobs/tasks needed in addition to censors, per se.
The British were very interested in the French islands due to the pro-Vichy government, the presence of armed forces, and most important of all - the gold from the French treasury sitting on the ship in the harbor that the British were using as collateral to buy war materials from the US.
If it sounds like this is evading a definitive answer, it probably is, but the fact is collectors have access to a very small percentage of the censored mail - far less than 2 %.
The second part of your question is if 6129 was a senior censor or a DAC. Usually, we can identify a DAC when they have resealed a cover over another label. There were only a few of them, and again we haven’t seen 6129 used as such. In Antigua, Tweddell identifies 6044 as the censor with the greatest number of labels, so I interpret this that she/he was likely not a DAC.
We know that DAC’s were assigned at about one per ten censors. Jamaica had about 150 censors at max, thus about 15 DAC’s. We also have 143 censors fairly certain identified by number and 88 “Maybe’s”. (App6.4, Vol 9). Assuming we aren’t far off on the “Maybe’s, a total number of DAC’s over the period should be about 18 to 25. These numbers omit the members of the Jamaican Censor Service who didn’t convert to the Imperial Service. The problem is we haven’t been able to identify the DAC’s.
Good ideas and questions. This is how we learn things about what was going on.
Regards,
Ray