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BASE OFFICE (BO) - FPO and APO Cape Town

I saw this letter card and immediately liked the combination of ALFRED DOCKS with FIELD POST OFFICE BO BRITISH ARMY S AFRICA datestamps. It suggested a soldier arriving in Cape Town early in the SAW. The letter is interesting though hard to read. See transcript below.

The Double Circle FIELD POST OFFICE BO BRITISH ARMY S AFRICA is a complete strike of the BO (BASE OFFICE, CAPE TOWN) postmark. Its date of 'MR 26 00' places it in the middle of its known period of use between '18 11 99' to '1 08 00'. (Prime.) The Base Office for the Army's Post Office in South Africa was located in Cape Town. This is a good if rather too fine example of the first Base Office Cape Town datestamp with large asterisk within the central ring above the date and squares in the outer ring. There are five different varieties of this particular BO Cape Town datestamp.

A second type of datestamp, a single circle ARMY BASE PO CAPE TOWN, was used between '08 06 00' to '07 09 02' in the Base Office Cape Town.  These are a lot less common than FPO datestamps. They are often found on Official Stationery envelopes. Examples in red are harder to find. See the example below that looks like it marched with the Flag all the way to Pretoria, assuming it reached the addressee.

The BASE OFFICE became ARMY POST OFFICE (APO) 47 when the FPO was dropped.

The SS Oriental and the 3rd Battalion Royal Scots?
A pencilled note on the front of the letter card says 'SS Oriental'. I assume that this is a reference to the troopship believed to have taken the correspondent to South Africa. I have found an on-line reference to the 3rd Battalion Royal Scots that states that it sailed from Queenstown (Ireland) on the SS Oriental for South African early March. A typical two week voyage would place it in South African waters in late March 1900.

On 25 October 1899, two weeks after the start of the SAW, the 3rd Battalion Royal Scots was a part-time Militia battalion. On 5 December the battalion was embodied for full-time service in the SAW. In early March 1900 it left Ireland and arrived at East London, not Cape Town, on 21 March 1900, the day when this card was written at sea and the correspondent was expecting to get to the Cape "first thing in the morning".

So, has the ship been misidentified? Was the writer taken ill aboard ship and disembarked in Cape Town? Did the 'SS Oriental' stop there? Are the dates I have drawn from the Wikipedia article correct? Who knows? Did mail go from East London to Cape Town and out via Alfred Docks? There is much I do not know. I initially thought that the postmarks were somehow connected with the soldier's arrival in Cape Town. Now I know it was posted several days after arriving .... somewhere.

The letter reads:

"South Africa
Laughter Field Hospital xxxxxx Wed 21st March 21____

Dear Brover Will,
Expect to get to the Cape first thing in the morning. Had a splendid voyage. Men are
sending a bad account to the Morning Post & Mail about it but on the whole they have
not done us bad considering we have been going all the time & not taken fresh stores.
Shall be glad to get on land again. We crossed the line last week. had a court x held
down in amongst the Raithes in there berths for crossing the line without permission.
They got lamps blacked & nautilus got so many bottles of beer to bye etc. I was
chosen one of the Minstrels for our farewell concert last night. had to sing a corus x
(Genevieve) 1 of us 7 were Sergeants. Got a black face, white shirt, red satche (?).
went off well. I left my Box open so as when my coat got dry xxxx would put it in. Call
and see how they are getting on. So, hope to hear from you soon. Everything all right.
love to all. Believe me, yours affectionately,
Brover Jack."

The relatively common ALFRED DOCKS CGH datestamp is Putzel's No. 4b without Time Code Letter. As ever, there are questions about the sequence in which Putzel lists postmarks in "The Postmarks of South Africa ....". Alfred Docks is no exception. Putzel's ALFRED DOCKS example No. 2 is dated 1911 and his No. 3 is dated 1910 while his No. 4 is dated 1900 and his No.4a is dated 1901 (or is it 1910?). Further his No. 5, 5a and 6 are all dated 1904. While we cannot base the sequence of datestamp issue on one year alone, his dates suggest issues with his listings. All this emphasises the need for collectors to list the earliest and last dates of datestamp use. In the absence of postal records, it is the only way to see which preceded which.

When I bought this letter card it was marred by unsightly hinge remnants that had previously mounted it to a page. They proved quite awkward to get off and stubbornly resisted the gentle damping I applied. The places where the hinges were on the left-hand side allows you to see the letter card's original colour and how it has faded over the years. I will remove the other right-hand side hinge after posting this image.

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  • FPO-BO-British-Amy-Cape-Town.jpg
  • Single-Circle-Army-Base-Office-Cape-Town.jpg