OCR Text |
Show Order of The Postmaster General Air-Mail Restrictions; Matter Destined Outside Continental United States The War nad Navy Departments exercise control over the transportation trans-portation of air mail to overseas destinations. Reports received during dur-ing the past few weeks show conclusively that the volume of air mail now being received for transmission to certain points outside, out-side, the continental United States is greatly exceeding and will continue greatly to exceed the facilities that are or can be made available for that purpose. Therefore, There-fore, it becomes necessary to materially reduce the weight of individual pieces of air mail so that the transportation by air of the greatest possible number of letters to those areas may be as- surecl.- ". ' '.'. ... The existing military demands upon air-transportation facilities for strategic cargo and for per- sonnel essential to the war ei-fort ei-fort have made necessary the immediate establishment of the following order of preference in the loaning Of mail' on aircraft destined for restricted areas: First Official air mail Second V-Mail Third to the extent space is available, other letter let-ter mail weighing not in excess ex-cess of 2 ounces per letter. The . public should be informed that the quantities of air mail coming within the third category that can be given air dispatch to the restricted areas cannot be : accurately predicted, and such matter may have to be transport-1 transport-1 ed by surface means. Military necessity may later require that only official air mail and V-Mail be transported by air to these rreas. Until further notice, therefore, only letters in their usual and ordinary form weighing not in excess of two ounces and coming within the third category may be accepted as air mail for transmission transmis-sion to foreign countries and to overseas Navy post offices and A.P.O.'s. Packages of merchandise, prints etc (except official packages) will not be carried by air from the United States. The foregoing restrictions apply to air mail for all points outside the limits of the continental United States except that for the time being they will not apply to Mexico, Central America and South America, the West Indies, and other islands within the Caribbean area, Alaska, Canada, and Newfoundland. Posmtasters will pluP.ce instriut their patrons as far as practicable practic-able without expense to the Department De-partment of these changes in the manner of handling air mail and further urge upon their patrons the importance of using V-Mni for messages to persons in the military service outside the United Unit-ed States and of using the lightest light-est ij..;sible stat'cucw for other overfeas correspondence. j The foregoing instructions are effective immediately. |