June 1979 - International Philippine Philatelic Society

L.TilE $PAC£" BELO...... "u,y M \J~:a::O,.O~ COI=tPCS.PONOE,..CE_VICTORY!~ I:~HE: S",...e .... ~, 13 II' A~~POSTAL C.tXR8HQ,557thAPOIG A\X") il,Fig. 1A MINOR PHILATELIC MYSTERYBV Eugene A. GarrettA dOlen or more liberatlon·period covers and postalcard similar to the example illustrated in Figure1 have been observed in recent years. All have thesame U.S, Military address handstamped on theface; all have the well·known special Manila cancelcommemorating VJ·Day; and all display the sameJapanese stamp, tied with a carefully-struck purelyJapanese postmark. I have regarded such contrivedcovers as mildly interesting "philatelic curiousities:'interesting primarily for the reason that the dateof the Japanese postmark, (Showal 20.9.2. is identicalto the date of the Manila cancel, September2, 1945. But. with a closer look, as Alice remarkedin Wonderland. the subject becomes "curiouser andcuriouser ..."I was prompted to take that closer look whenIPP$er Louise Cavanaugh inquired about them.Not being capable of transliterating the Japaneseinscriptions in the postmark. help was sought frommy friend and fellow IPPS member. FumihikoYano of Sakai. Japan HIS reply was as suprisingas it was prompt:"The postal card of which you sent aphotocopy with Filipino and Japanesepostmarks is very interest ing, but Icannot understand how the postmarkdates are quite the same in spite ofthe fact that the two towns are a longdistance apart. The Japanese postmarkis from the very small town ofMera In Chiba Prefecture at the extremesouthern end of the Bosho Pemns'Jlc."Mr. Yano kindly enclosed a map locating Mera onHonshu, at the entrance to Tokyo Bay on theSagami Sea; it is perhaps 85 km. from Tokyo. andacross the Bay but somewhat closer both to YokosukaNaval Base and Haneda International Airport.So, the curious riddle, of course, is "How couldpostmarks with identical dates from Mera, Japan.and Manila, Philippines, some 1,850 miles distantfrom each other, manage to be struck upon thesame cover·" Also, 'Why Mera, an obscure smalltown instead, for example, of Tokyo·"Several possible answers come to mind, but arepurely speculative; perhaps the true amwer isknown only to the (apparent) U.S. serviceman whoprepared them - unless one of our readers cansupply the answer.29