Searching for a Hidden Treat Peter B. Smith ne of the thrills of studying postal history comes when a couple of simple covers throw O up a whole bunch of different hidden delights, one after the other. It wasn’t until I’d studied these two covers numerous times that I discovered there was a hidden treat waiting for me at the end. My interest is in the postal history of the Discovery Islands – a group of tiny islands off the west coast of B.C. between Vancouver Island and the mainland, which between them boasted 28 post offices over the years. I live on one of these islands – Quadra – and the two covers I was studying relate to post offices on Read Island, just 10 minutes away from Quadra in my fishing boat. When I first saw these two covers I liked Why did it have a Vancouver black-out? the look of them, but the more I studied them Blackouts were an admirable war-time security the more I found they had to offer. idea – unfortunately with a built-in flaw. The Say for example you were interested in World War II blackout cancels. Well these have two excellent examples from Vancouver. I turned to B.C. blackout expert Lee Dowsley who has studied such cancels in great depth. He told me about the cancels themselves, which are quite unusual as they were only used for two years from September 1943 to September 1945. Lee has identified that the postmark on the No. 10 cover (Fig. 1) has been a Pitney-Bowes Model “G” cancellation wavy-line machine cancel with hub die #9 (reversed). 14 • PHSC Journal 140 – Winter 2010 Fig. 1 – Full-sized cover sent from the Canadian Legion provincial headquarters, sent originally to Surge Narrows post office, British Columbia. purpose was that when a ship left port during the war all the mail it carried would be anonymous thanks to the blackout cancels. If the enemy sank the ship and recovered the mail, they would have no clue as to which port the ship had just left. On this cover, as planned, the cancel successfully hid the fact that the Union steamship carrying it had set off from Vancouver. But, if you were a German or Japanese collaborator hoping to glean vital war-time secrets from this cover, you’d have got a pretty good clue from the sender’s address on the front – Vancouver – the hidden flaw in the system. The cover even has military connotations which the enemy might have wanted to know about. It was sent from the Provincial headquarters of the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League in Vancouver. Despite the cunning trick of disguising the cancel, the enemy would know the ship was operating out of Vancouver and would even know the individual building holding this military outfit from the sender’s address. But this blackout cancel wasn’t the hidden treat for me. Lee identified that the smaller cover (Fig. 2) bears a Pitney-Bowes wavy-bars machine cancel with hub die #5 (re- versed). Why this one has a Vancouver blackout is much more interesting for a postal historian. This one, according to the reverse, (Fig. 3) was sent by “J. B. W./ Stuart Island B.C.” Now this is quite exciting PHSC Journal 140 – Winter 2010 • 15 Fig. 2 – Small anonymous- looking cover, addressed to Surge Narrows post office, B.C. Fig. 3 – Reverse of the small cover, with sender’s initials. because that was John Baird Willcock, the postmaster at Stuart Island, and he was sending his letter to Surge Narrows post office, serving a small community on Read Island, not far away (see map). As Lee Dowsley pointed out to me, this was almost certainly a rather nice commercial “way mail” letter. Willcock the postmaster would detective work to discover what the letter inside have given the letter to the crew of the Union the short cover was all about? Here are the clues. steamship when it stopped at his wharf on its The sender, postmaster John Baird Willcock was way south to Vancouver. With no postal clerk an old soldier from World War I. Post office on board, his letter would have been bagged, records from Ottawa show him to be a veteran the steamship will have taken it south to who served in the army in England, France, Vancouver, where it would have been offloaded Belgium, Italy and Germany during the First at the post office headquarters – received its World War. secret Vancouver blackout cancel – and been put And here he is writing from Stuart Island on the next northbound steamship aimed for to Mr. Vic Teixeira, the secretary of the Surge Narrows post office. Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service But even that blackout cancel wasn’t the League on Read Island in August 1945. hidden treat for me. And guess what I learned from the Royal What about the excitement of dabbling in Canadian Legion Yukon Command archivist, 16 • PHSC Journal 140 – Winter 2010 Fig. 4 – Fig. 5 – Laura Rallis. A few weeks after this letter was rarity factor of the postmarks they collect. sent, Branch #116 of the Legion was set up and Everyone hopes to find a broken circle cancel called the “Read and Stuart Islands” branch. It’s the rarity of which will have been carved in been disbanded now for more than 40 years but stone in William Topping’s 1991 bible British what’s the betting that that was the subject of a Columbia Post Offices as an “E” rarity – with letter from an old war veteran on Stuart Island fewer than ten recorded in philatelic annals to the Legion officer on Read Island? at that time. Better still, everyone dreams of But this detective work wasn’t the hidden finding a “U” or an “*” cancel which means treat. no one, at least up to 1991, had ever found Postal historians place great store by the one on cover at all. PHSC Journal 140 – Winter 2010 • 17 Fig. 6 – Fig. 7 – Figs. 4,5,6,7 and 8 – Five examples from among my little islands of “missent to” marks on official post office forms. Note the Stuart Island form is signed by John Baird Willcock, the postmaster who sent the small cover being studied. 18 • PHSC Journal 140 – Winter 2010 So you can imagine I was excited with these two “Missent to” marks on these two covers, especially the “Read Island” mark with its pointing finger – how much more dramatic the pointing finger is than just the straight-line words. How I wish that all postmasters had been as conscientious as these two. I have several covers which bear the postmark of the wrong post office, showing it had been missent there accidentally and forwarded on – but in each case the postmaster failed to grasp the heaven-sent opportunity and failed to use his rare “missent to” hand-stamp. But even these “Missent to” marks weren’t the hidden treat for me. It came later when I looked at the details of when the recipient of the two letters, the Legion secretary, Mr. Vic Teixeira, received his letters. If you look carefully at the dates on the Surge Narrows B.C. receiving marks struck on Mr. Teixeira’s letters on the day they arrived, you see the hidden treat. This is what happened. The letter sent from Fig. 8 – the Canadian Legion headquarters in Vancouver on July 23, 1945 came north on the Well I love trying to collect “Missent to” Union steamship and, as the backstamp shows, marks on covers going to or from my little was accidentally off-loaded at Read Island post islands, which I think are really rare. As all office on July 27, where it sat for a week. This my searchings have only ever produced three was really unlucky for Mr. Teixeira as the Read used on covers, I reckon these could all be at Island post office was on the east side of Read least category “E” marks, and, despite all my Island, whereas, Surge Narrows, where it hunting, 26 of my 28 post offices are all still should have gone, was on the west side. Mr. “U” marks to me. Teixeira would have to wait at least another I have numerous strikes of many of the week for his letter until the Union steamship “Missent to” marks from my post offices, but passed Read Island post office again. they are all on official post office forms sent The letter from the postmaster on Stuart in every year from each post office. Each Island got down to Vancouver and was sent postmaster had to strike every mark on the back up north on the steamer on August 1 and form once each year to prove to his boss in was accidentally off-loaded at Stillwater post Ottawa that he hadn’t lost the hammer in the office near Powell River on the mainland. last 12 months (see Figs. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8). The Read Island postmaster put Mr. PHSC Journal 140 – Winter 2010 • 19 Fig. 10 – The “missent to Surge Narrows” cover. Fig.9 – Surge Narrows post office back-stamp showing August 10, 1945 on the full-sized cover. other letter in the post on August 3. And then, amazingly, they both ended up in the same mailbag and were offloaded at the Surge Teixeira’s letter in the mail on August 2 on Narrow post office on the same day, August the first available Union steamship one week 10, 1945 (see Fig.