Canadian Military Post Offices to 1993

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
the author of Military Archives: International Directory of Military
Publications and The Bantams: The Untold St

For those in military service, “mail call” has always been the most
eagerly awaited event in the day. A letter from home becomes especially
significant when one is at war or just in some far-away camp. Military
events, particularly world wars, created immense volumes of mail to and
from destinations in every corner of the globe. Such a vast volume of
letters also created an entire area of specialized study among stamp
collectors.

This unusual and worthwhile book is aimed primarily at philatelists who
study military mail. Its lengthy and detailed checklists itemize the
places, dates, and units of the oft-unheralded but crucial Canadian
Forces Postal Services during war times and peacekeeping duties.
Featured throughout are rare illustrations of various
“hammers”—postal cancellation stampings that indicate where the
mail was processed. There’s

a particular poignancy about the section on prisoner-of-war camps, where
many Canadians were incarcerated for lonely years. For military-history
buffs, a unique and unexpected benefit is that the book provides some
rare insights into the organization and involvement of our armed forces
since the Boer War in 1898—it lists virtually every place that
Canadian soldiers, sailors, and flyers have served.