Letters sent by forces personnel based in Guernsey, even after the Liberation of the island on 8 May 1945, were still subject to censorship, as shown by the “ON ACTIVE SERVICE” cover from Guernsey to England at Figure 9. The cover is dated 2 June 1945, has a Field Post Office number 138 cancellation date stamp and “PASSED BY CENSOR” shield cachet, together with the manuscript signature of the person undertaking the censor check.
The registered cover at Figure 10, bearing a mix of Guernsey and Jersey Arms stamps totalling the 5½d registered letter rate, was sent from Guernsey to France on 17 July 1945. The cover has been censored and bears a “P.C.90” censor sealing tape which states “OPENED BY EXAMINER 7497”. On the reverse of the cover is the scarce oval violet “GUERNSEY / REGISTERED / CHANNEL ISLANDS” mark.
Figure 9: An “ON ACTIVE SERVICE” cover from Guernsey to England dated 2 June 1945. It has a Field Post Office number 138 cancellation date stamp and “PASSED BY CENSOR” shield cachet, together with the manuscript signature of the person undertaking the censor check.
Figure 10: A registered cover from Guernsey to France on 17 July 1945, censored and bearing “P.C.90” censor sealing tape which states “OPENED BY EXAMINER 7497”. On the reverse of the cover is the scarce oval violet “GUERNSEY / REGISTERED / CHANNEL ISLANDS” mark.
Red Cross messages censorship
The German occupation of Guernsey ended external postal and telecommunication links for the islanders. Especially for the thousands of islanders who had been evacuated just before the occupation, there was a desperate need for the establishment of some form of communication link. Once the Red Cross Postal Message Service was in place, messages of up to 25 words could be sent on prescribed stationery, with replies being returned on the reverse of the forms.
Messages from the UK were initiated in Red Cross Bureaux, from which they were sent to London, where they were censored by the Post Office. They were then transported by boat to Lisbon, where officials of the British and International Red Cross dispatched the messages to Geneva. Checked by officials of the International Commission of the Red Cross (“ICRC”), as evidenced by the application of a cachet, messages were put into envelopes and sent to the German Red Cross in Berlin and then, after selective censoring, via the Feldpost system to the German Red Cross in Paris, where they were selectively examined and another cachet was applied.
The forms used for messages sent from the UK were designed by the ICRC, Geneva and were written in English, French and German. The forms were initially issued by the Prisoners of War, Wounded and Missing Department of the War Organisation of the British Red Cross and Order of St John.
The forms used for messages sent from the Channel Islands were designed by the Deutsche Rotes Kreuz (“DRK”), based on the accepted ICRC forms, and were written in German and French. The routing of these forms was the reverse of that described above for UK-originated forms.
The message at Figure 11 was sent from Stockport on 15 May 1941 to Guernsey. It was stamped with the red octagonal cachet of censor P.71 in London and also shows the red and purple cachet applied by the German Red Cross Commission in Paris as evidence that the message had been checked as acceptable for content. The form also carries a double circle cachet of the ICRC in Geneva.
Figure 11: Sent from Stockport on 15 May 1941 to Guernsey, this message was stamped with the red octagonal cachet of censor P.71 in London and also shows the red and purple cachet applied by the German Red Cross Commission in Paris as evidence that the message had been checked as acceptable for content. The form also carries a double circle cachet of the ICRC in Geneva.
The message at Figure 12 overleaf was sent from Guernsey on 1 May 1942 to Stockport. It was stamped with the red octagonal cachet of censor P.117 in London and also shows the purple cachet applied by the German Red Cross Commission in Paris as evidence that the message had been checked as acceptable for content. There is also a double circle cachet of the ICRC in Geneva.
It is unclear from the form as to which censor was responsible for the redaction of some of the text in the message, using black ink on the front and rear of the form.
The message at Figure 13 also overleaf was sent from Guernsey on 23 September 1943 to Carlisle. It was stamped with the purple octagonal cachet of censor P.233 in London and also shows the blue cachet applied by the German Red Cross Commission in Paris as evidence that the message had been checked as acceptable for content. There is also a double circle cachet of the ICRC in Geneva.
Clearly the German censor took exception to certain words in the text, so much so that they redacted them by cutting out the words from the form. This rather extreme measure appears to have shocked the London censor into pinning a leaflet P.C.11 to the form stating “The British Examiner is not responsible for the mutilation of this letter”, this leaflet then being initialled by the censor (number 1861).
Figure 12: Sent from Guernsey on 1 May 1942 to Stockport, this message was stamped with the red octagonal cachet of censor P.117 in London and also shows the purple cachet applied by the German Red Cross Commission in Paris as evidence that the message had been checked as acceptable for content. There is also a double circle cachet of the ICRC in Geneva.
Figure 13: Sent from Guernsey on 23 September 1943 to Carlisle, this message was stamped with the purple octagonal cachet of censor P.233 in London and also shows the blue cachet applied by the German Red Cross Commission in Paris as evidence that the message had been checked as acceptable for content. There is also a double circle cachet of the ICRC in Geneva. The London censor pinned the leaflet P.C. 11 to the form stating that they did not carry out the redaction by cutting out specific words.
The Red Cross Bureaux in Britain posted some messages directly to the ICRC in Geneva. Such letters were usually marked “Red Cross Postal Message Scheme” or “Channel Islands Message Scheme”. Such a letter is shown at Figure 14, sent from Marlborough on 9 November 1943. The letter was opened by the British censor and resealed with PC 90 tape. The rubber stamp “COUPON-RESPONSE” was applied in Geneva by the ICRC to signify that an international reply-paid coupon had been attached to the message form. The Paris censor cachet “A.x.” – the A being short for Auslandsdienstprufstelle (Foreign Letter Examination Office); and the “x” being the code letter for Paris.
Figure 14: A letter sent from Marlborough on 9 November 1943 to the ICRC in Geneva. The letter was opened by the British censor and resealed with PC 90 tape. The rubber stamp “COUPON-RESPONSE” was applied in Geneva by the ICRC to signify that an international reply-paid coupon had been attached to the message form. The Paris censor cachet “A.x.”.
