Translated by Barth Healey

Originally published in 'Il Nuovo, Corriere Filatelico' no.43

By the end of 1942 Italian troops had spread through half of Europe. Occupation forces were stationed in Albania, part of France, Greece, Jugoslavia and Russia; in Africa Italian troops controlled Libya and occupied part of Egypt and Tunisia. There were also Italian contingents in allied countries such as Germany, Rumania, Spain and Hungary. In all these areas the military were assisted by military post offices, while in other parts of the hemisphere there were troops who coped without a military post office attached to them. We should also remember the Armistice Delegation in France which operated on French territory but which used special handstamps and sent its mail to a special centre in Turin from which it was forwarded to its destination.

These thousands of Italians under arms were at times in battle but equally as often were in quiet areas where they faced a life of boring guard duty with lots of free time. What to do? Out of ingenuity and interest many carne to take up stamp collecting. Thus Bernardelli, Consoli, Are, etc., to name just the best known, dedicated themselves to the creation of beautiful covers that may have seemed useless at the time but which have come to be genuine treasures. Back and forth they went in a passion to create attractive frankings in all conceivable combinations and unnecessary registrations.   These friends of ours went out of their way to link the pragmatic with the eccentric, creating mixed frankings that involved Italian commemorative stamps and stamps valued in leptas, dinars, qindars. They also saved on postage paid because it was cheaper to buy stamps in the locai currency than in Italian lire.

Once a system had been worked out it was not difficult to send mail to other military units and all through 1941 and 1942 there was a lively commerce between the personnel of military units and the corner tobacconists of Greece, Albania and Jugoslavia in order to send home souvenirs from abroad. This activity, part sport, part cultural, would have got completely out of hand if the postal authorities, either to save revenue or for reasons of security, had not decided to take corrective measures. In this way was born the Imperiale series with P.M. overprints.

The issue was announced by a special decree of the Ministry of Communications which ran the postal service, the decree dated 11th September, 1942. The values overprinted were the 20c., 25c., 30c., 50c., L1.25, L1.75, L2 and L3 ordinary mail; 50c. and L1 airmail, and the L1.25 Express. Under the terms of another decree of 25th July, 1943 further values were overprinted to cover a broader range of postal needs. These were the 5c., lOc., 15c., L1 and L10 ordinary mail; L2, L5 and L10 air mail; and the L2 air Express. As a result of these decrees the military post offices were supplied with their own stamps and the use of regular Italian stamps should have ended as well as the use of stamps issued by the occupied countries. I do not know of any regulation stating this but I have a strong idea that a ban was issued at ministerial level against accepting mail franked by stamps other than the overprinted issues.

The first quantities of stamps ordered under the 11th September, 1942 decree finally arrived towards the end of Aprii, 1943. Instructions regarding their distribution were contained in Order No. 551180 of the Ministry of Communications dated 24th April, 1943, and we must consider that the stamps began to be issued to military post offices from this date. In fact this is the first known date of use; on a registered letter sent from military post Office No. 106, attached to the XI Army HQ based in Athens.

With the arrivai of the overprinted stamps, stocks of other stamps held by individual offces should have been withdrawn, being sent through the regional offices to the Ministry of Communications. This might have been done by some post offices but others found it more convenient to distribute their stocks together with the new supplies. This offered the opportunity to create mixed frankings and to use the Imperiale series in occupied territory after May, 1943.

Distribution of the overprints under the second decree - that of 25th July, 1943 - took place before the issuing decree but as yet there is no evidence to indicate even an approximate date of issue or distribution. For several decades it was thought that these stamps were never used by the military post offices but recently some lucky finds have permitted us to assert that there was actual postal usage. This usage was, however, extremely limited both because the values had little postal relevance given the rates that had to be paid and because of the limited period for which the stamps were valid - a cautious estimate puts this at the months of July and August and the first eight days of September, 1943.

Personally I know of one use of the 5c. dated 7th July, 1943 on a letter from P.M.28 based at Thebes and attached to the III Army Corps (Coll. B.S.). I maintain that not all values were distributed to the military post offces, a statement to confirm what I wrote on page 185 of my catalogue "LA POSTA MILITARE ITALIANA 1940-43". At the same time however, I have had to change extensively the valuations I put on certain values because the values of the second issue have been shown by extensive research to be rarer than was at first believed. Therefore the valuations in Table "B" can be taken as updating the valuations listed on pages 186-9 of my catalogue.

As is known, the use of the overprints ended on 8th September, 1943, the date of the Armistice, which was followed by the collapse of the military postal operations. Stamps overprinted "P.M." were put to civilian use in Italy thus maintaining their interest for us.

I shall now try to sketch out a hypothetical collection for which I indicate average, if imprecise, valuations; which will clarify the difficulties inherent in building a collection of "P.M." overprints used by the Military Post.

MILITARY POST OFFICES THAT USED THE OVERPRINTS:

Until now this subject has been treated in a fragmentary and erratic manner. The statement merely that these stamps were used "..in territories outside Metropolitan Italy" is too vague and sweeping to satisfy anyone looking for a complete understanding. The stamps were certainly used in the Pelopennese, the Greek islands and Albania: Jugoslavia is rather different. We can quickly rule out Russia and Tunisia since the Italians were in full retreat on those fronts in Aprii, 1943 and their usage their is highly improbable. We can include Germany, Austria, Poland, Rumanis and Hungary because there are known, albeit rare, uses in those countries. We can however exclude France, Corsica and Spain as I do not know of any use in those countries.

I hope, with the help of my readers, to reach a more precise understanding as to which post offices used the overprints. Firstly, for Jugoslavia we have to make the following distinctions.

a) LJUBLJANA and DALMATIA: Because only Italian stamps were valid - the Co.Ci. and similar issues lost in time - Slovenia and Dalmatia being integral parts of the Kingdom of Italy, the P.M. overprints were not distributed. There are however some reasonable doubts. The Commissariat of the Second Army had jurisdiction over Slovenia-Dalmatia as well as Croatia. Therefore, knowing that the 'P.M.' overprints were distributed in Croatia, it is possible to conceive of "oddities". For example, an office located in Fiume that used the overprints, stamps that were distributed to a section located in Croatia. It seems logical that the Commissariat of the II Army might have distributed the 'P.M.' overprints to offices on detached service in Croatia; this could be verified by a single improper use.

b) KOTOR (Cattaro) AREA: It seems that the overprints were regularly used.

c) MONTENEGRO: Overprints were used in all military post offices.

FIRST DATES OF USE: In a well-known magazine, now defunct, that covered postal history, there was for a long time a feature that noted first usage dates of military post offices. This had the defect of making a game out of treating first use in an absolute sense without taking the location by country into account nor the use by different offices by which means, until the notifications dried up it was considered unacceptable to give a new date after the discovery of one even earlier, even though that might be for a post office in another area altogether.

It seems to me the debate has to be along more logical lines, namely to discover the frst dates area by area. Then, for those who want to go into this more deeply, find the dates for each individual military post office. As far as the second issue is concerned, i.e., the 5c., 10c., 15c., L1, L2, L5 and L10 values, the hunt for the date of first use is wide open, as of July, 1943.

FRANKING: Most of the mail franked by 'P.M.' overprints carried a rate of 50c. or 50c. + 50c., i.e., surface or air letters. After this there were letter-cards and postal stationery cards for air mail use, franked at 50c. Rarest of all are the express and air express - services virtually unknown to most users. Registered letters are rare, rates for postcards and picture postcards not common. Also not common are frankings of 50c., or L1 made up by stamps other than the usual 50c. Rarest of all are the highest and lowest denominations, while mixed frankings with stamps of the Imperiale series are especially nice. Yet to be discovered are rarities where these stamps are mixed with others.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bruno Ciceri: I francobolli soprastampati P.M.; "Il Collezionista" No. 17, Sept. 20, 1975, pp 5-8

S. di Pietro: I Soprastampati P.M.: "Il Filatelico", Catania, No. 10, October, 1977.

M. Lazzerini: Uso del francobollo da 15c. serie Imperiale soprastampati P.M. da parte di un ufficio postale militare; "Notizario AICPM" No. 28, March, 1981, pp 13-15.

G. Marchese : La Posta Militare Italiana 1940-1943; Ediz. Studio Fil. Nico, Trapani, 1981.

Vedi (Fig. 1), (Fig. 2), (Fig. 3).