The Military Postal History of the New Hebrides
During the Second World War

Efate - The US Army

The first body of the US army to reach the New Hebrides was Task Force 9156. It arrived on Efate on 4 May 1942. Personnel from the Task Force were immediately assigned to set up APO 932 as the chief Army Post Office there. APO 932 was, in its early days, located at US Army Headquarters in the Joint Court Building in the French area of Vila.

22 June 1942 - The only known use of Force 9156 as part of the sender's address.
Commercial postcards were rarely used by military personnel, no doubt
because they were likely to reveal the sender's location.


The reverse of the same postcard - even in sepia tones one could
deduce the sender was not in Alaska ....


Note the early stringent censorship, with the locality scratched out by the censor Captain
A L Hilliard. By November 1942, "Somewhere in the New Hebrides" would escape censorship.


The main component of Task Force 9156 was the 24th Infantry Regiment, for whom APO 932 provided all postal services on Efate until its closure on 7 December 1944.


4 August 1942 - An early cover. The APO number in the cds had not been
removed, in spite of a July 1942 directive.


25 September 1942 - An early cover. The remnants of the APO number in the cds are clearly
visible, but do not seem to relate to "932". It is difficult to tell which unit this
particular cds might have come from, but one assumes that it was
a cds from another APO, which simply lent itself to being used
by APO 932 when the numbers were ordered removed.

The APO number in close-up.


23 October1942 - For once, not censored by Lt Shaver.


29 January 1943 - Use of the APO 932 post office by a member of the 24th Infantry Regiment.
with the "932" still removed from the cds (Jersey Type 35) in response to the
directive dated 1 July 1942 from San Francisco. It was rescinded in March1943.



              Lt Arthur K Shaver, who censored these four letters as Base Examiner 1900



27 March 1943 - In this later use of the APO 932 cds, the rescinding of the 1 July 1942 order has
resulted in the replacement of "932" (Jersey Type 34). Note that this is not the same cds as
Type 35 above, but a different cds. Compare the full-stops on the "US" and
its distance from the outer ring.