DAMAGED AIR MAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1938, Page 10

DAMAGED AIR MAIL

LETTERS BY THE CYCNUS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, December 29.

Although the bulk of the air mail carried by the Empire airliner Cygnus, which crashed into the sea at Brindisi on December 5, has now been delivered, the addresses on several thousand letters have proved indecipherable, and these are at the returned letter office in London awaiting claimants. The letters will be held in London for a few weeks and will then be sent back to the returned letter offices in their countries of origin, so far as this can be determined.

Elaborate precautions were adopted by the Post Office in drying the mail to ensure that as much as possible of it was readable, but even so many letters were so badly damaged by the water as to make it impossible to discover to whom they were addressed. The authorities were unable to say as yet how many letters from each country have not been delivered. Those which remain are a comparatively small proportion of the total. They are being held for a short period to enable people expecting mail by the Cygnus to claim it. While the addresses to which the remaining letters were sent cannot be deciphered, the sender's name is clear in some cases and the returned letter offices in the countries of origin will have little difficulty in locating the writers. Some of the letters, however, are mutilated beyond recognition.