The 586th Army Postal Unit

V-Mail was used between 15 Jun 1942 and 1 Apr 1945.

During WWII, millions of letters were written to, from and between military personnel serving around the world. Limited cargo space on ships and planes was needed to transport war supplies, but letters were vital to morale. "Victory Mail" (commonly called "V-Mail") was the innovative solution.

According to the National Postal Museum, "A person who wanted to send a letter by ... V-Mail would obtain the standard, pre-printed form from the local post office.... The form contained space for a letter of about 100 to 300 words, the address of the [recipient], the address of the sender, and a circular area for the censor's stamp of approval.

[Editor's note: All correspondence by military men and women had to be censored to ensure no classified or sensitive information was revealed. Officers could censor their own mail but letters written by enlisted personnel had to be read by an officer. His signature in the censor's block showed the letter was approved for transmittal.]

"Once the message was written, the form was to be folded and sealed. It then made its way to a processing center where the form was re-opened and fed through a machine that photographed the letters on 16mm film.... When the V-Mail reached the destination, it was sent to a local processing facility that reversed the process, printing photographs of the letters [that were] sent to the intended recipient in a three inch by four-inch envelope." The original V-Mail form was about 7 x 9 inches; what the recipient got was about 4 x 5 inches.

"V-mail ensured that thousands of tons of shipping space could be reserved for war materials. The 37 mail bags required to carry 150,000 one-page letters could be replaced by a single mail sack. The weight of that same amount of mail was reduced dramatically from 2,575 pounds to a mere 45."

Letter-writers could still mail real letters. In 1944, regular mail took a three-cent stamp. Air mail stamps started at six cents. Military personnel serving in a combat zone paid no postage to send their letters home.

Letters between 579th Intelligence Officer Capt. Laurence Gram and his wife Isabel often debated the arrival speed of air mail versus V-Mail. After analyzing their correspondence, son-in-law Howard Thompson concluded that air mail tended to be faster if there was space on a plane going from England to the US. But if there was not enough room to carry mail pouches, such a letter would be delayed. V-Mail would beat an air mail letter in those times since rolls of microfilm could always be fitted in. Air mail delays in departure and delays in filming and printing V-Mails were trade-offs that periodically changed over the course of the war.

The 586th Army Postal Unit was the lifeline that kept Crusaders connected to family and friends back home and serving throughout the world. This was especially true at holidays.

586th postmen were swamped with mail. In December 1944, they received 4,030 sacks and pouches of mail, almost 1,700 more than the monthly average for 1944. They sent out 1,837 sacks and pouches, 754 more than the monthly average. The 578th Sqdn history said mail clerk Cpl Johnny Taub "estimated he handled 28,000 pieces of mail during the month-about 7,000 packages, 3,000 newspapers, and 18,000 letters."

576th Sqdn navigator 1/Lt Everett "Ike" Isakson recalls that "Packages from Stateside arrived well in advance of the 1944 Christmas holiday. My family enclosed a Paisley scarf. (Now where could I wear that?) The wonderful cookies that my Aunt Millie sent, though well-packed, arrived in crumbles. The family of our bombardier, 1/Lt William C. Sexton, owned a large restaurant supply house in Chicago, so his Christmas package contained a full range of snack delicacies. Being as most of our crew finished the required 35 missions on 5 Jan 1945, there were still treats for a fi nal gorging before we vacated our wartime home."

The Daily Bulletin warned station personnel to mail greeting cards to US recipients by 15 Nov to insure delivery by Christmas. Censorship, AAF Style Letters written by enlisted men had to be read and censored by an officer before they could be mailed. Officers were permitted to censor their letters.

Charles Dye, Station Ammunition Officer, was one of four officers in the 1825th Ordnance Supply and Maintenance Co. He said each officer had "censor duty" one week a month. When it was his turn, the mail to be reviewed would be on his bunk when he returned to quarters in the evening.

"At first," he says, "I read each letter and used a sharp razor blade to cut out the parts that had to be censored. However, I soon learned that some men wanted their letters to be cut out, giving their parents, girlfriends, and other recipients an indication that they had a lot of 'military secrets.' Therefore, I started returning the letters to be rewritten. Soon they ceased to contain any prohibited information."

A memo from Gp HQ dated 1 Dec 1944 reminded censors not to "insert additions to nor make excerpts from communications which they censor, except as required for official purposes." They were also cautioned not to "repeat or discuss information contained in communications they censor except as required in the line of duty.