AIR MAIL SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 July 1941, Page 4

AIR MAIL SERVICE

TO TROOPS IN MIDDLE EAST. GETTING BACK TO NORMAL. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. According to recent advices, the airmail service from New Zealand to the troops in the Middle East is getting back to normal, the Postmaster-Gen-eral, Mr Webb, announced yesterday. “Recent events in Iraq had the effect of increasing the transit time taken by air mails, but the position now is that though the service is still slightly irregular, letters are being received in Egypt approximately 14 days after dispatch from the Dominion,” said Mr Webb. “Surface mails, too, have improved; a mail dispatched during the first week in May was received at the Base Post Office toward the end of June, the transit time being seven weeks, com : pared with what has hitherto been the normal time of two to. three months.” Mr Webb said that in war conditions delays were unavoidable, but everything humanly possible was being done by the Post Office and the army authorities to ensure the most expeditious treatment of correspondence for the fighting forces. Mr Webb added that, notwithstanding the extra work thrown on the Base Post Office by the disorganisation resulting from the campaigns in Greece and Crete, the latest advice was that the work of disposing of accumulated mails had been overtaken and, so far as the Bas Post Office itself was concerned, delivery of correspondence and parcels was back to normal.