World War Two Airgraphs

The airgraph system was inaugurated by the British Post Office in August 1941. Before then, the difficulty of quickly relaying news to and from the serving Forces and their families was great, and there were few transport aircraft and very little space for mail. The feasibility of microphotogaphy was researched, and letters began to be photogrpahed, condensed onto microfilm, flown to their destination and the image enlarged. Each message was numbered and photographed which meant that any mail lost in transit could be quickly reproduced.

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WW2 Airgraphs

By May 1942, 10 million airgaphs had been sent from the UK to the Middle East. Their total weight was less than one ton, whereas the equiavlent in airmail would have been over 100 tons. When the service was discontinued in July 1945, 330,000,000 messages had been handled.