HEAVY TASK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 158, 22 September 1941, Page 6

HEAVY TASK

POST OFFICE IN DESERT

DELIVERING THE MAILS

Thirteen fully-laden railway truclcs brought to the Cairo station recently the second largest mail yet consigned to the N.Z.E.F. in the Middle East. It was made up of about 5100 bags of parcels and newspapers, which hatl been in transit since the lxiiddle of May. New Zealand Army postal officials estimate that the whole of the mail would be out within a fortnight. After sharing facilities with the Australian Imperial Force staff for sev* eral months, they now have their own premises in a* large city building and are better equipped than ever before to handle big mail shipments, With hundreds of soldiers separated individually or in groups from their units to undertake special courses or duty in the desert, immediate delivery of all mail is no easy task. The postal organisation, however, lias perfected a card index system in which the address of every man is kept up-to-date. When large formations go into, the field, postal sections go with them. They worked under extreme difficulties in Greece, but only six bags failed to reach their destination. In Crete the record was even better, since not a single bag was lost. Heavy surface mails arriving here at intervals tax the postal unit's capacity, because they come on top of the more sustained and always increasing flow of air mails. Each month no fewer than 200,000 air mail letters —an increase of about 600 per cent over the figure a year ago—are received and despatched. In addition, soldiers' gifts and souvenirs for relatives and friends at home, together with a small quantity of letters, are handled as outward surface mails. j Last Christmas was a peak period, Over 75,000 parcels and newspapers were 1 sorted and delivered; there were more than 1150 bags of letter mail. In all, the unit has now handled 250,785 parcels and 12,795 bags of letters and papers.