On the 23 and 24 November 1938, Short S23 Empire flying boats left the UK for Alexandria where Australian and New Zealand mail from both flights was loaded on the Empire flying boat Calpurnia.
The flight from Alexandria was to Tiberias on the sea of Galilee and from there to Lake Habbaniyah near Baghdad. On November 27, in the dark and during a sandstorm, the Calpurnia crashed on landing in Lake Ramadi (12 miles from Lake Habbaniyah) killing the four flight crew: pilot Captain Attwood, First Officer Spottiswood, Radio Operator Bayne-Rees and Flight Clerk Ubee. Two passengers and the stewardess survived. [1]
The RAF retrieved a large part of the mail from the water including 60 of the 69 mailbags for New Zealand. An attempt was made to dry the mail before it was sent to Sydney. The New Zealand mail was sent on to Auckland where it was dried further.
Great efforts were made to deliver the mail and to decypher washed out handwriting. Several different cachets were applied in New Zealand: at Auckland, Christchurch and three at Wellington. The example cover has one of the Wellington cachets.
The cover was posted in Ireland and has a 21 November postmark. It would have been carried to Southampton to join the Imperial Airways flight on either 23 or 24 November.
The first mail from the flight arrived in Auckland on 19 December with further mail arriving over the next three weeks. A manuscript on the back states that the above cover was received in Christchurch on 31 December.
Many of the covers had the stamps washed off and some New Zealand post offices applied postage due markings which was against UPU regulations [1].
back
All scans were made by the author.
Information on this page is taken from:
Airmails of New Zealand, volume 2 (1986) compiled by
Douglas A Walker, and
The New Zealand Airmail Catalogue, (2nd Edition, 1994)
by James Stapleton.
Both are published by the
Air Mail Society of New Zealand
[1] Sanford K.C., Air Crash Mail of Imperial Airways and Predecessor Airlines,
published by The Stuart Rossiter Trust Fund, 2003.