V-mail, short for “Victory mail,” was a postal system put into place during the war to drastically reduce the space needed to transport mail thus freeing up room for other valuable supplies. Here is a sample:
V-mail letter during WWII
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Martin, thanks for this post. I knew what V-Mail was, but never read any details as to how it worked and such. Interesting. Two lines stood out to me. 1.) Between June 1942 and November 1945, over 1 billion items were processed through these means. 2.) Censors would also read each letter before they were filmed.
I know the letters were read by censors to keep war related info secret, but I wonder what exactly the instructions were of what to censor. Also makes me wonder if all mail was censored, not just V-Mail? (If you sent packages were those looked at? I mean, you could’ve put a letter inside along with the contents.)
If I were a V-Mail reader I’d want to keep a journal of interesting things I read. LOL!
Yes, I was surprised by that number, too. A billion needs A LOT of man hours devoted to censoring each one. Fortunately, they were only one page long.