Februa ry, 1963 Volume 34, Number 5 The American Air Mail Society A Non-Profit Corporation Incorporated 1944 Organized 1923 Under the Laws of Ohio PRESIDENT Dr. James J. Matejka, Jr. Official Publication of the LaSalle Hotel, Chicago, Illinois AMERICAN Am MAIL SOCIETY SECRETARY Ruth T. Smith Vol. 34, Number 5 Whole Number 393 102 Arbor Road Riverton, N. J. TREASURER John J. Smith 102 Arbor Road Riverton, N. J. Contents for February, 1963 VICE-PRESIDENTS Foreign Pioneer Airpost Flights Joseph L. Eisendrath Samuel S. Goldsticker, Jr. 1904-14 105 Herman Kleinert Lester S. Manning C.A.M. Cover Notes 110 EDITORS - Other Publications L. B. Gatchell The Airship and the Airplane 112 Geo. D. Kingdom ATTORNEY 1963 Convention Flash 113 George D. Kingdom Official Section . 114 SALES MANAGER Herman Kleinert Ecuador Pioneer Flight Cards, 215 Virginia Ave. Fullerton, Pa. October 8, 1913 ................... 118 DffiECTOR OF FOREIGN RELATIONS The Philatelic Story of Flight . 119 Dr. Max Kronstein AUCTION MANAGER Charles A. Lindbergh .... 122 Samuel S. Goldsticker, Jr. ADVANCE BULLETIN SERVICE South Africans Airmails 127 Paul Bugg 3724 Old York Rd. The Airmail Flights of Haiti 132 Baltimore 18, Md. A. P. J. Ads ................... Inside Back Cover TRANSLATION SERVICE Roland Kohl Augusta-Victoria Str. 4 EDITOR Wiesbaden, West Germany Joseph L. Eisendraih AUDITOR 350 No. Deere Park Drive, Highland park, Ill. Stuart .T. Malkin ASSISTANT EDITORS DIRECTORS Robert W. Murch Alton J. Blank, Herbert Brand­ Ernest A. Kehr L. B. Gatchell ner, Paul Bugg, Robert E. Har­ ing, Dr. Max Kronstein, George DEPARTMENT AND ASSOCIATE EDITORS L. Lee, Narcisse Pelletier, Horace R. Lee Black, N. Pelletier, Florence L. Kleinert. D. Westbrooks. Dr. Max Kronstein, Richard L. Singley, William MEMBERSHIP DUES - $4.00 R. Ware, .lames Wotherspoon, John Watson, William T. Wynn, Frank Blumenthal, Samuel per year S. Goldsticker, Jr., J. S. Langabeer. Include subscription to The AIRPOST JOURNAL. Appli­ Published monthly at Albion, Erie Co., Pa., U.S.A. cants must furnish two refer­ Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office ences, philatelic preferred. At at Albion, Pa., February 10, 1932, under least one must reside in Appli­ the Act of March 3, 1879. <:'ant's home town. Applicants The AIRPOST JOURNAL is not conducted for under 21 :vears must be guar­ profit. The Editor and all others serve without teed by Parent or Guardian. <:'ompens3tion. Receipts from advertising, sub­ Membership may be terminated scriptions and contributions are applied to the by the Society in accordance betterment of the magazine and the promotion with its B:v-Laws. of aero-philately. Correspondence concerning sub­ scriptions. back numbers and The Editor and Officers of The American Air bound volumes. address changes Mail Society assume no responsibility for the and other matters and all re­ accuracy of statements made by contributors. mittances should be sent to the Every effort is made to insure correctness of Treasurer. All general com­ all articles. munications and advertising Subscription Rates: $4.00 per year, 35c per copy. should be sent to the Editor. Advertising Rate Card available from the Editor. Foreign Pioneer Airpost Flights 1909-1914 C. Special Postal Cancellations of the Pioneer Period VII. THE FIRST AIRPOST FLIGHT IN ALLAHABAD, INDIA, ON FEB.18, 1911 By Dr. Max Kronstein Early in 1961 India commemorated the• fiftieth anniversary of the first aerial post from the United Provinces Exhibition in Allahabad, India on February 18, 1911. Aerophilatelists of the world joined in this celebration as the Golden Jubilee of the first official air mail transportation and of the first official postal air mail cancellation in the world. A study of the events of the period shows that this flight of the French aviator Henri Pequet was in no way an exceptional event in the course of aeronautical demonstration flights in India that year. There were other European aviators making flights from other Indian Exhibition Grounds around the same time. But what made this particular flight an exceptional historical event was the transportation of an aeroplane post for the first time. To give a background to this development one notes demonstration flights in February 1911 by Baron de Caters, one of the aviators of the International Aviation Exhibition ILA in Frankfurt, Germany in 1909. He went from the Mysore Exhibition Grounds on February 14, to Rangoon, to make aerial flights at Secunderabad at an aviation exhibition. He made five flights-two with passengers (Mr. Stubbs of the Bank of Bengal and Captain Maxwell of the Second Infantry Brigade) the same weekend that the Pequet airmail flight took place from the Allahabad Exhibition. Jules Tyck, also on the same day made demonstration flights in Madras. There the morning weather conditions were more favorable. He changed his announced demonstration hours to 6:30 p.m. to 8 a.m .. Governor and Lady Lawley turned out early to see his successful flights over the Bench and Mount Road and over George Town at Madras. The exceptional feature of the Allahabad flight of Mr. Pequet was an arrange­ ment by the British Captain (later Sir) Walter Windham with the Postmaster­ General of the United Provinces, Sir Geoffrey Clarke, to provide for mail to be officially accepted and to use a special postal cancellation on such mail. This was announced in the Calcutta "Bengalee" of February 16 in a despatch from Allaha­ bad, dated February 15, as follows: "THE U.P. EXHIBITION: Mail carried in Biplane: The Exhibition Committee has decided to offer to send a postcard bearing a picture of the biplane in which the mail is to be carried, signed by Mr. H. Pequet, the aviator in charge, and stamped with a special aerial postmark to any address which is sent to the Chaplain of the Holy Trinity Church, Allahabad, not later than 18th February for the sum of one rupee, payable to him in cash or by money order. "The die, with which the stamps are to be impressed, will be destroyed on the day following the carriage of the first aerial mail. It is intended-wind and weather permitting - to despatch letters by aeroplane at 4:30 p.m. on the 20th instant from the Polo Grounds of the U.P. Exhibition and from there the plane will go to Naini, crossing the Jumria river and descend near the Jail, where the letters will be handed over to the Post Office officials who will despatch them to their destinations." It is evident from this announcement that the post flight had been scheduled for February 20, but it would take place on February 18 and that two kinds of mail were to be carried: An autographed special pictorial card under the auspices THE AIRPOST J"OURNAL, FEBRUARY, 1963 l 05 of the Holy Trinity Church in Allahabad at the price of one rupee per card and a more general acceptance of aerial letters and postcards from the public. We illustrate this special postcard. The British D. Field's Priced Catalogue of Air Mail Stamps and Airposts of the World, Second Edition, 1934, lists the number of these flown cards as 40 and "probably n.ot more than 12 existing today." However, news reports of Allahabad, Feb. 19, indicate that the aviator himself signed at least 400 postcards and that all the proceeds went to the funds of the Oxford and Cambridge Hostel. The total nw11ber of letters and postcards flown by him is reported as approx­ imately 6500 items. A regular post office was set up on the exhibition grounds at this "United Provinces Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition at Allahabad" although the mail carried by Pequet was not handled by this office. In order to restrict the weight and space and to limit the size and nwnber of letters, a six annas surcharge was established. Each item had to be posted by handing it over to a postal official in Mr. Pequet's tent at the airfield. The extra proceeds were then donated to the Oxford and Cambridge Hostel in Allahabad, such as the funds collected from the autographed special cards, for which a one rupee charge had been made. It was possible to despatch registered letters by the aerial mail and our illustration shows sl!lch a cover with the special cancellation of the "FIRST AERIAL POST 1911-U.P. EXHIBITION ALLAHAB.AiD" (The postage stamps are here on the reverse side, as was at that time often the case on registered mail, but these stamps also show the cancellation of the aerial post). This special postmark had been prepared at the Postal Works in Aligarh and was to be destroyed on the day after the flight. A short five mile goal was set for the aerial postal transportation and was based on safety and convenience, not because the plane would not have been able to fly a longer distance. The pilot previously had made many flights from the Exhibition Grounds which by Feb. 6, 1911 totaled already close to 400 miles, of which 250 \:o.1ere over the Ganges and Jamuna rivers, at an average altitude of 1000 feet and without accident. 106 THE AIRPOST J OURNAL, FEBRUARY, 1963 The pos tal flight took place on February 18, at 5:30 p.m. in the presence of several thousand spectators. The plane landed at Naini 13 minutes later and r turned from there to the exhibition grounds after another 30 minute interval. The Indian people were interested in this new aviation because of an old legend. According to the Sacred Vedas the end of things on earth would take place a thousa11d years after a man came flying. Now planes were flying over quite distant parts of the country.