The Message Under the Stamp (Ali Atkinson)

## "The Message Under the Stamp" Summary

“The Message Under the Stamp" was originated in 1993 during World War II. It was about a mother’s son going into the navy and fighting in World War ll. The passage explains how the boy would write letters to his mother frequently, bringing her comfort and peace of mind knowing he was okay. Then eventually the letters stopped coming in for weeks, then weeks turned into months, and it started to worry her. The mother ended up getting in touch with the Department of the Navy. She was informed that her sons ship had been sunk and his whereabouts were unknown. Not knowing whether her son was dead or captured by the Japanese warriors really scared her. For months she was without answer and then one day her prayers were answered. She got a phone call from the Navy saying that a letter had arrived from Japan. The letter was from her son, Robert. It said that he was alive and that when his ship sunk, he had got captured by the Japanese and was in a Japanese prison camp. He also stated that the people who captured him were treating him very well surprisingly. Relieved, his mother read the letter over and over again. She noticed there was a Japanese wartime stamp on the letter. She then remembered that her nephew collected stamps and thought it would be a nice addition to his collection. Plus, it would be rare in the United States. So, from there she steamed the stamp off of the envelope and she noticed something. It was some tiny print where the stamp had been. The message that was there read, “They’ve cut off my hands” (Mikkelson B). In addition, there was a family in Kewanee, and they had a son in the military who was captured by the Japanese soldiers as well. They received a letter from him and in the letter, he specifically stated to save the stamp. The family was a bit confused due to the boy never collecting stamps before but proceeded with his wishes anyways. They soaked the stamp off and under the stamp was some small writing that read, “They have cut out my tongue” (Mikkelson B). The first sighting of “The message Under the Stamp” dates all the way back to 1866. There are no famous versions of this Urban Legend story but there is other stories that have had messages hidden under stamps to hide communication of specific things.

## "The Message Under the Stamp" History

The history of “The Message Under the Stamp” goes back to World War II where mailing letters was a huge form of communication. In this story, Beth Lynns oldest son, Robert, was in the Navy so when he was sending letters home to his family, his letters were read by the government before it was sent out to his family. Since the government would read your letters before they went to your family, you had to be careful with what you talked about because they didn’t want the “truth” to be told about what was really going on and they didn’t want to much information to be given. People in the Navy had to hide things and drop off little hints in the letters so they could tell their family the truth about what was really going on without the government knowing that they were telling the family. So, hiding messages under the stamp on the letter became a huge thing since the government wouldn’t check under stamps for messages.

## Adaptations of "The Message Under the Stamp"

The adaptations I can find is how the mother had to adapt to her son being gone and her son only talking to her through handwritten letters. The mother had to adapt to her son not talking to her for periods at a time when she was usually used to talking to him often when he was home. Because before, the boy went to war he was home, and she could talk to him whenever she wanted but being that he wasn’t home and went out to war she couldn’t talk to him on command. Another adaptation I could find is the son having to adapt to not being home and being a prisoner of war. Also, he would have to get used to not having hands since his were cut off in the Japanese prison camp.

## Analysis of "The Message Under the Stamp"

The adaptation I will talk about is the boy’s mother having to adapt to not talking to her son whenever she wanted to. She didn’t make a decision to adapt to it or change the way she goes about things about the situation, she more or less had no choice to adapt to it. She really had no choice because it was ultimately her son’s decision to go to the war and she couldn’t just tell her son to come back because she didn’t want to adapt to it. The only way she could talk to her son was through the letters so she would take that over not talking to him at all.

## Work Cited

Mikkelson, B. (2010, January 12). *Message under the stamp*. Snopes. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/franked-admission/

Storyteller. (2017, December 14). *The message under the stamp*. Urban Legends Online. https://urbanlegendsonline.com/the-message-under-the-stamp/

*The message is the mystery on new U.S. forever stamp*. Linns Stamp News. (n.d.). https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/the-message-is-the-mystery-on-new-u.s.-forever-stamp