A Christmas Day Cover Mailed from the South Pacific During World War II

[Published in the Yule Log, Apr-May-Jun 2025 issue:

Yule Log 2025.pdf

Download PDF • 2.53MB

-----------------------

I describe myself as an eclectic collector of postal history. If I see a cover that intrigues me – it could be the historic period, the postal markings, the sender, the recipient, whatever – I’ll pick it up (as long as the price is reasonable!) and learn as much as I can about it.

If I had to narrow down my collecting interests, it would be air mail followed by covers to or from Wisconsin (my home state) and Pennsylvania (my current home). I couldn’t pinpoint what got me hooked on air mail – perhaps it was my father talking about his time serving in the Army Air Corps in the years following World War II – but it is a special interest of mine.

The cover depicted in Figure 1 satisfies two of my collecting bugs. It was sent by air mail, and it was addressed to someone living in Cudahy, a town that borders Milwaukee to the south. On top of that, it was postmarked on Christmas Day, 1944! Even before this cover arrived in the mailbox from the dealer, I was playing detective.                                

Figure 1 – Cover postmarked “U.S. Navy” December 25, 1944. Source: Author’s collection.

From the postmark, return address and censor mark and tape, the cover was obviously sent by a member of the U.S. armed forces during World War II. His name was Ralph Albert Palkowski, born in Milwaukee in 1923. Ralph enlisted in the U.S. Marines Corp (USMC) on February 1, 1943, just before his 20th birthday.

Ralph served in Marine Fighting Squadron 222 (VMF 222, for short) of Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 14. MAG 14, in turn, was part of the First Marine Aircraft Wing (FMAW). You can see all those acronyms in Ralph’s return address.

VMF 222 was known as “The Flying Deuces.” They provided air support for the USMC during the island-hopping strategy in the South Pacific and fought in engagements at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, Bismarck Archipelago, and the Southern Philippines. At the time Ralph mailed this letter, VMF 222 was stationed on Nissan Island, which is one of the Green Islands of Papua New Guinea. That is very likely where this cover was postmarked on December 25, 1944.

Although members of the U.S. armed forces had free frank privileges during World War II, it was not unusual for them to pay six cents (per half ounce) to speed up a letter by air mail. That is precisely what Ralph did. He enclosed his letter in a common 6-cent air post stamped envelope issued in 1944 (Scott UC5).

As the crow flies, the distance from Nissan Island to Cudahy is about 8,400 miles. Based on the receiving mark on the back (not from the post office but from the George J. Meyer Manufacturing Company) (Figure 2), the cover traveled that distance in 11 days. That is pretty remarkable when you consider this was before the jet age and during wartime. 

Figure 2 – Receiving stamp applied at the George J. Meyer Manufacturing Co., January 5, 1945.

The military placed a high priority on routing mail during World War II. The first leg of this cover’s journey was probably on a transport plane operated by the Marines’ South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command (SCAT). Chances are the SCAT plane flew to Brisbane, Australia where the cover was placed aboard a Naval Air Transport Service (NATS) plane that made its way to San Francisco basically along what was known as Foreign Air Mail Route 14 first flown by Pan American Airways: New Caledonia, Fiji, Canton Island, Palmyra Island, Honolulu and finally San Francisco. Once the letter arrived at the Fleet Post Office in San Francisco, it would have a hopped a flight on Northwest Airlines (NWA) that flew mail for the U.S. Post Office Department along Air Mail Route 3 to Minneapolis and then to Milwaukee (Figure 3).

Figure 3 – Likely route cover took from Nissan Island to Milwaukee. Source: Google Maps.

What Ralph wrote to George Jr. is unknown; the enclosure has long since been separated from the cover, but I have to believe it included Christmas greetings and best wishes for the holidays.

It probably didn’t feel very Christmas-like on Nissan Island, however. The air temperature was in the low 90s, but it felt like 106º F given the high humidity. (By comparison, it was in the low 30s in Milwaukee.) On top of the weather, there was no Christmas truce during World War II. Although the military made efforts to bring the holiday spirit to military installations, December 25, 1944, was just another day. The postmark attests to that reality.

If the cover did hold holiday wishes, I am not sure when those expressions of goodwill got to George Jr.

George Junior was the son of George Senior, founder of the company bearing his name. It manufactured bottle cleaning machines, which were very important at a time when beer bottles were returned for reuse and Milwaukee was renowned for its breweries like Pabst, Miller, Schlitz and Blatz.

Based on his World War II draft card, Ralph worked at George J. Meyers before the war, and that is certainly where he and George Jr. met and is probably why Ralph sent his letter to that address. However, George Jr., who was born in 1924, was probably not there in late 1944. According to his draft card, George Jr. was a student at Yale University in 1942 but was wearing Army green by late 1944. Indeed, George Jr. enlisted in the U.S. Army on February 16, 1943 (15 days after Ralph joined the Marines) and would serve until February 1946.

I found Ralph’s service record on Ancestry.com, but I also connected with Ralph’s son on Ancestry.com, and he offered more insight into Ralph’s military service and later life.

Ralph was discharged from the USMC in late 1945 and returned to Milwaukee and went back to work for George J. Meyer. He then re-enlisted in the USMC 1947 and returned to Marine Corps Aviation, serving in Guam and Korea before returning to the United States to work at the USMC recruiting station in South Bend, Indiana and Niles, Michigan in the mid to late 1950s (Figure 4). He did another tour of duty in Japan in the 1960s and retired from the USMC in 1968, after overseeing its recruiting office in Milwaukee for a few years. Ralph then moved his family to Cudahy where he worked as a machinist for Lucas Milhaupt, Inc. for 25 years, retiring in 1993. Ralph would pass away in 1995 at age 72. 

Figure 4 – Photo of Marine Sergeant Ralph Palkowski from The Niles Daily Star, May 7, 1957.

George, Jr. moved away from the Milwaukee area as well, but he too would return later in life. In the 1960s, George Jr. lived near Worcester, Massachusetts where George J. Meyer Manufacturing Co. had expanded. By the early 1990s, George Jr. was back in Milwaukee and would die there at age 77 in 2001.

It would be interesting to know if Ralph and George kept in contact after the war, or if they met up again when they both returned to Milwaukee later in life. For many, Christmas is a time for gathering with family and friends, so in that spirit, I like to believe that they did.