May 30, 1944

MAIL DELIVERY AT SNAIL’S PACE

Delivery Especially Troublesome in Pacific

AEF PACIFIC—Reporting from somewhere in the Pacific with the Allied Expeditionary Force, William L. Worden describes the rampant mail delays, especially in outgoing mail.  He states those with relatives in the Pacific theater generally “…have the whips and jingles about lack of mail or else have that peculiar stunned look that comes from receiving thirty or forty letters the same day.” Case in point, a single shipment  of over eight hundred thousand letters from the Pacific arrived in San Francisco in March of this year, which was the largest to date. The remoteness of the many outposts presents logistical problems, and many do not have the photographic equipment to process V-mail, so V-mail has never caught on for those in the Pacific.