PEARL HARBOR CANCELS

By Alfred F. Kugel:

Although I have collected military mail for many years, I am a new member of the USCS. Upon joining, I received copies of a couple of recent editions of the Log, including the May 2008 edition. I was greatly interested in the article by Frank M. Hoak III on “Naval Ship Cancels as of December 7, 1941,” especially his conclusion that there were no ship cancels that were legitimately struck at Pearl Harbor on that date. In the article he illustrated as Figure 6 the back of an envelope postmarked U.S.S. Breese that was purportedly sent by Leslie Miller as one of two covers on that date. I can answer the question of where this cover and the companion one are located today, as well as showing both sides of the two items, although there is no way of authenticating that they were mailed on December 7. Apparently, Miller was the Navy Mail Clerk on Breese and the cancel can be considered original – but the main questions are when was it applied and did the covers actually go through the mail.

The second cover is similar to the one shown in Hoak’s article but has a different message written to his wife on the back. This one reads “Sweetheart, This raid just finished. Lots of hell popping. This was a two way surprise. The Japs got theirs when so many planes were knocked down in blazes & fragments. All for now. Love, Les. Save these.” In addition, somewhere during the last 65 years, someone had this cover encased in plastic, which didn’t do its philatelic value any favor; I guess that they wanted to be sure that its potential historical significance would be preserved. This procedure appears to have shrunken the envelope in size somewhat as compared to the first cover, in addition to smearing the Crosby cachet and loosening the picture of the ship.

As background, the ship was named after Kidder R. Breese, Captain of U.S.S. Black Hawk, flagship of Admiral Porter’s Mississippi Squadron during the Civil War. Breese was anchored at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and opened fire on Japanese aircraft with her machine guns that morning, damaging numerous planes.

In any event, this note and the illustrations will add a little more to the story told by Hoak for the benefit of the readers of the Log.

By Dave Kent:

 My thoughts:

    A friend of mine who was in the Navy at the time of Pearl Harbor (although on the East Coast) told me that everyone was totally surprised at the Japanese attack, so much so that no one would have thought of making covers. Remember the attack took place in two waves, and everyone was certain there would be a third wave. That meant that priorities were: put out the fires, repair damage to keep the ship afloat, tend to wounded shipmates, prepare for another attack (on many ships they couldn't even find the keys to the ammunition lockers). Cancel covers? No way.

    However: this is a Crosby cover. Believe it or not, Crosby actually did more business selling unused cacheted envelope to crew members than he did selling canceled covers to collectors. It is certainly possible, even likely, that a crew member might have an unused Crosby envelope among his stuff, especially if he was the mail clerk. A few days later, as things calmed down, the clerk decided to use his old envelope to make a "rare" souvenir of the Day of Infamy. As the mail clerk, he had the cancels and set of date slugs, so he could do it. It certainly wasn't mailed. It's an air mail envelope and the only air mail service from Hawaii to the States was via the Pan Am clipper, for which the postage was 20 cents. The block of four 2-cent stamps shows it was only made as a souvenir. I'd guess he either found a way to smuggle it into a package he sent back home, or kept it with him until he got back to the States and could send it home without the censor seeing it (all mail from Hawaii was censored after the attack, even civilian mail).

    Bottom line: genuine cancel and cover, but backdated, probably by several days.