Evening star., 1941-10-26
How Mail Helps to Win a War
By Henry Gem mill.

BY Henry GemmfH.
When the Greeks sailed for war
against Troy, folks back home didn't
hear from them for 10 years, unless
wandering minstrel like Homer happened
by with some tall tales But the Greeks
won their war.
It could never happen now. Military
experts agree that what modern troops
need is morale, and there is nothing SO
good for morale as postcards and letters
streaming between the boys in the Army
and the girls and parents in the home
town. This is particularly true of an
American Army.
Our World War A. E. F. wrote 28,O00,-
900 letters to the U. S. A., during a single
record breaking month, making an av-
erage Of one letter per soldier every Sec
ond day. Meanwhile, the lads in uniform
we're receiving twice this number Of let
ters from America. The total was greater
than that being handled by the entire
French postal system.
This colossal flow of love. inforfna-
ton and chit-chat did not merely en-
flame the spirit Of the American Army.
According to COL william A. Kenyon,
who was boss of the A. E. F. postal sys-
tenn. the enthusiasm swept through the
Allied Armies-it was contagious. 1t
helped win the war.
The Army's Postmaster
Col. Kenyon, a slim. soft-spoken man,
is remarkable because he is one OF the
few people holding essentially the same
active post in the present defense effort
as in the Great War. He gets a real
workout seeing to it that the soldier
maneuvering on a Carolina hilltop or
in Louisiana swamp is handed strictly
fresh mail each day.
The 1st and Sd Army maneuvers now
expanding around Carolina will engage
about 275,000 troops. They will require
about the same postal service as city
the size Of Washington, D. c., because
nearly every soldier is writer, while
only two out of five civilians use the
mails.
Imagine the mailman's problem if all
residents of Washington started running
around in the woods, hiding behind
camouflage, leaping aboard fast-moving
trucks and chasing one another for
hundreds of miles to uncertain desti-
nations.
Yet it is known that mail will be de-
livered without substantial delay, since
the post went through during even
larger recent frolics around Louisiana.
Uncle Sam boasts he can find any
soldier at any time-if he isn't A. w.
O. L.
Locator Gard System
To do so, each army has, for one thing,
locator card system, showing on 3-by-
5-inch cards exactly what outfit each
man belongs to. During his retreat
from the Sd Army. 1t. Gen. Ben Lear
was forced five times to move quarter
million locator cards for his I'd Army.
These war games require exactly the
same postal system that this country
is prepared to use in war. Civilian en-
ployes of the Post Office Department
are rushed to peaceful cities nearest
the battle zone" Thus New York is
now the concentration center for all
military mail going to Iceland and other
Atlantic defense bases 1t would still be
so if an American expeditionary force
were sent to Europe or Africa. Seattle
and San Francisco are the civilian postal
tunnels through which all mail goes to
Alaska and our island defenses in the
Pacific
Beyond this point the Army is in
charge, throughout what Is ofncially
termed the "theater of operations" A big
base post Office is set up for each military
force-in the case Of an expeditionary
army it would be at the port nearest the
troops From there the mail is sprayed
out to mobile postal regulating sections
at the edge of the combat zone and then
trucked on to smaller and smaller units
in the thick Of fighting.
Knowing that mail can be valuable
in enemy hands, revealing where troops
are and in what numbers, the Army
has already established a semi-secret
code to denominate its field post Offices,
and new codes are ready for immediate
use If we 60 to war.
During maneuvers, deliveries are be-
ing made at night, so that uniformed
mailmen will be less likely to be run
down by tanks and more likely to find
soldiers of a unit assembled in one
place.
The postal clerks at the civilian con-
centration center and the Army base
post Office may not have the ghost Of
an idea where Pvt. Johnny Smith is.
or where his company is located at the
moment. But mail sacks are relayed-
each military postal unit keeping in
formed where its largest component
members are.
COL Kenyon claims the Army has a
low rate of lost mail, and one reason is
that the draft has nabbed many mail
man, now put to work doing the same
old job for the armed forces. This seems
to be some improvement over the World
War days, when Col. Kenyon said he
could not understand "just why the
company buglers invariably were Sc
lected as mail orderlies."
Certainly musical talent alone was q
poor standard by which to measure
ability for the painstaking task Of sup
plying correct addresses when the ad-
dressee no longer was with q given
unit" he complained.
No. 4, Front Rank