V-Mail in World War II

Imagine that you are far, far away from home for months or even years. There are no phones. There is
no e-mail. There is no Facebook, or Skype, or text messages, or any way to get news about your family
and friends – except the mail.

Mail meant (and still means) a great deal to soldiers who are serving our country overseas. Each letter
brings news that lets a soldier remember what a normal life is like at home. Mail ranks along with food
as one of the biggest morale boosters for our military troops!

However, when you put thousands of letters in bags and

boxes, they take up a lot of space and are very heavy. Back in
World War II, mail had to be shipped all over the world to
reach the soldiers – to Europe, Africa, islands in the Pacific
ocean, and China. Letters took up a lot of room on ships and
planes, room that was needed for supplies, food, and
ammunition.
Bags of mail waiting to be loaded on
a ship in World War II.

V-Mail, or Victory mail, was a valuable tool for the military during World War II.
The process, which originated in England (and called Airgraph), was the
microfilming of specially designed letter sheets. The microfilm contained a picture
of each of the letters. Instead of using valuable cargo space to ship whole letters
overseas, microfilmed copies were sent instead and then "blown up" at an
Microfilm overseas destination before being delivered to military personnel. Each roll of
microfilm could contain about 1500 letters!

V-mail ensured that thousands of tons of shipping space could be reserved for war materials. The 37
mail bags required to carry 150,000 one-page letters could be replaced by a single mail sack. The
weight of that same amount of mail was reduced dramatically from 2,575 pounds to only 45.

The system of microfilming letters was based on the use of

special V-mail letter-sheets, which were a combination of letter
and envelope. The letter-sheets were constructed and gummed
so as to fold into a uniform and distinctively marked envelope.
The user wrote the message in the limited space provided, added
the name and address of the recipient, folded the form, affixed
postage, if necessary, and mailed the letter.
The rolls of film were sent to prescribed destinations for
developing at a receiving station near the addressee. Once the
microfilm reached its destination, it was processed and each letter
was printed out at 1/4 of its original size and the mini-letters were
delivered.

Printing and cutting V-Mail.

Letters written by soldiers were reviewed before they were
microfilmed to ensure that there was no classified information
included in the letter. If there was anything that the censor felt was a
danger (for example, if the letter fell into the hands of the enemy and
it contained a soldier’s location), that information was cut out.

The first large Army operated V-mail station overseas was opened on April 15, 1943 at Casablanca,
North Africa. Hastily set up in a field following the Allied invasion of North Africa, this makeshift
station continued to operate until September 15, 1943. Between June 15, 1942 and April 1, 1945,
556,513,795 pieces of V-mail were sent from the U.S. to military post offices and over 510 million
pieces were received from military personnel abroad. By the end of the war there were about 800
V-Mail receiving stations operating in both theaters of war (Europe and the Pacific).

While there is no need for V-Mail today, soldiers serving overseas still love getting mail from friends
and family!

To view a short movie about V-mail, go to:

http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/victorymail/letter/index.html