A new book details the mail censorship and intelligence-gathering operations jointly conducted by the United States and United Kingdom during the Second World War.
Looking at censored mail travelling between European Axis countries and Latin American countries with pro-Axis sympathies, the book is entitled Pan American Airways Wartime Transatlantic Air Mail: Censorship and the LATI Substitute. It’s authored by prominent U.K. collectors John Wilson and Frank Walton, Fellows of the Society of Postal Historians and Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL), respectively.
The allied censorship operation was based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was previously unstudied before this book, according to the authors. Lavishly illustrated, the book highlights the airmail routes and censorship processes developed after Pan American Airways took the reins from Italy’s transatlantic airmail delivery service “LATI,” which was launched in 1939 but terminated two years later after the United States entered the war.
The 312-page paperback book is available from the RPSL and costs £39 for society members and £44 for non-members (shipping outside of Europe is an additional £10).