§ LORD FARINGDON had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government whether the Secretary of State for 618 War can account for the non-delivery of mails to the Forces in North Africa; point out the resultant deleterious effect on morale; and move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, since the un-fortunate situation to which I am drawing your Lordships' attention this afternoon must be within the personal knowledge and experience of the vast majority of the members of your Lordships' House, it will not be necessary for me to say very much about it. I raised the matter here four months ago and then received a reply from the Postmaster-General's Department. It was apparent from that reply that the blame for the non-delivery of letters to our Forces in Africa did not rest with his Department; indeed even a slight consideration of the situation would have made that apparent. When I put down my previous question it had not occurred to me that one Department would be able to shuffle off the blame whilst another Department gave no answer at all. At that time I put a supplementary question to the noble Lord who was replying and asked whether these arrangements in North Africa for the delivery of mails were in fact under the control of the Americans. I received no answer to that supplementary question; perhaps I shall receive one to-day.
§ But the noble Lord did at that time say he would be very pleased to investigate any concrete case which I chose to bring to his attention, with the idea of taking a typical case and by tracing it down find out what in fact was happening. I was able to give him a case of my own, where not occasional letters but a whole series of letters, written at fairly regular intervals, had not arrived. This case, it seemed to me, would afford a clear and definite indication of where the fault lay. Unfortunately, I have now received an answer which the Postmaster-General has sent me from the War Office, in which they say that these particular letters were not delivered because the man in question had the same name as another man in the same unit and their letters had been confused. Even supposing that reply is both correct and an adequate excuse, and apart from the fact that it can bring very little comfort to the Joneses, Smiths, Browns, and others with common names in our Army, it clearly does not cover the practically universal experience of our troops in North Africa.
619§ I have mentioned in my Motion the extraordinarily bad effect which this failure to deliver letters must necessarily have upon morale. I would add, by the way, that even when letters are delivered I have heard of repeated cases where a very large accumulation of letters is delivered very many months after they have been written. Clearly that again indicates that there is something wrong at the other end with distribution. As I say, this matter does seem to have a very direct bearing upon morale—morale both of the Forces and of civilians at home, because the inevitable reaction, it seems to me, of a man in a foreign country far from his home when he receive no letters from home, is "Well, I am out of sight, out of mind." And there are probably natural anxieties by men who have left wives and sweethearts behind when they receive no letters from them lest they have found consolation with other men. Thereby very unjust but none the less disturbing suspicions and doubts may arise. Moreover, as your Lordships are aware, if we do not hear from a friend, sooner or later we give up writing.
§ So far as I can judge, letters from Africa tend to be delivered both more rapidly and more regularly than are letters to Africa. It seems that people get letters from Africa but that the Forces there do not get letters from England. If the members of the Forces do not receive letters they will inevitably tend to stop writing themselves. If they do that, what is to be the result here? There will be anxiety on the part of relatives who receive no letters, anxiety on the part of some wives and sweethearts lest their husbands and fiancés are discovering the distracting charms of the African houris. Some of us may be aware of the limitations of those charms, but perhaps, if one is a long way away and separated from those at home, those limitations may not prevent one from being excessively anxious. For these reasons I believe this to be a matter of really first-class importance. It has a direct bearing upon the happiness and the morale of the troops in Africa and of the general public here in England. For that reason I believe your Lordships will not mind the short part of your time that I have taken in raising this matter to-day, and I hope I am going to receive a satisfactory reply from the noble Lord who speaks for the War Office.
620§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD CROFT)My Lords, when the noble Lord tabled his Motion some fortnight or three weeks ago, I informed him that I was afraid at that time I could not give him a very full answer without making inquiries overseas or such an answer as he would desire, and he courteously consented to put the Motion down for to-day. I am very grateful to him because now I can give him a fuller reply. In the early months of the North African campaign the mails from this country to His Majesty's Forces could only be sent by sea. The service was slow and some losses occurred by enemy action. Subsequently air letter and airgraph services were introduced and have afforded a speedy means of communication. The opportunities for dispatch of mail for troops by sea are care-fully and regularly considered by the War Office in consultation with the other Departments concerned. Dispatch is made by the quickest available means both in Government vessels and by commercial freight. Arrangements are made for the collection and dispatch of troops mail up to the latest possible date before sailing. Wherever possible quick passenger ships are used for carriage of letters and the load is spread over several ships to minimize risk of loss at sea. The average time taken by such letters from the time they are dispatched from the Army Post Office to the time they arrive at a port in North Africa is fifteen days. To this must be added the interval between sailing of convoys.
An air mail service to North Africa was inaugurated in March, 1943. The noble Lord will appreciate that up to that date an air mail service was not possible, but from the date that it was initiated it has proved extremely valuable. This service is widely used by the troops and their friends at home, as it provides a really speedy means of communication at a reasonable cost—namely, 3d. homewards and 6d. outwards. The popularity of this service not only to North Africa, but also to the Middle East and beyond, has been very great. The average time taken by such letters to reach an airport in North Africa from this country is four days. In addition, airgraph apparatus was dispatched and installed in North Africa. The service has been in operation since March. Far from the amount of correspondence decreasing, as was 621 feared by the noble Lord, the average weekly dispatches now number some 130,000. The great advantage of the airgraph service is that the messages are processed on to a very light film and they consequently take up very little space in the aircraft. The films are again processed on arrival in North Africa and delivered to the addressees as individual messages. The average time taken including processing at each end is nine days.
The importance to the well-being of the soldier of the regular receipt of mail from home is and has always been fully appreciated. Facilities for handling mail receive careful consideration in the planning stages of all operations, and means of improving the mail facilities between troops abroad and their relatives and friends at home are always being examined. The onward delivery of mails—both sea and air borne—after their arrival in North Africa is the responsibility of the Army Post Office. The mails are sorted into unit bags and dispatched to the Field Post Offices by lorry convoys. Field Post Offices are situated at Divisional and Brigade Head-quarters and at other points from which the mails are drawn by unit orderlies. Great difficulties were experienced originally in transporting mails from the base in North Africa to forward areas owing to the extremely poor railways, bad roads and very extended lines of communication and at times ten or twelve days were required for the journey. As roads were improved and more transport became available, road services were established which carried mails daily from the Base to the front line troops about 400 miles away and reached them regularly in three days. The service has been further extended since the fighting ceased.
It must be realized, however, that in an organization of the size of the Army Postal Services no matter how carefully the administrative arrangements are made there always must be delay in delivering mails to individuals who for one reason or another have left their unit, or whose unit or detachment has changed location, before notification of the change of address has reached the Base Post Office. For example, a man may become a casualty and be evacuated to a hospital; he may leave his unit for employment 622 elsewhere; or he may be sent to a course of instruction outside his unit area. His mail must follow the normal course to his last known location, and on arrival there it must be redirected to the postal clearing house for onward transmission to his new location. Reports received from the military authorities in Africa show that during operations mails were de-livered regularly to formations and that the arrangements in general worked well. This is confirmed by Professor John Hilton, who has just returned from an extended tour in North Africa. In a recent broadcast, which the noble Lord may have heard, he said of the Army Postal Services there: ''Exceptions there are; but speaking generally and almost universally the air letter service is most miraculous in its promptitude." I think that is a very high tribute from an in-dependent witness who we know has the interests of the Service man very much at heart.
The extreme importance of regular receipt of troops' mail from a morale aspect is fully appreciated: regular delivery of troops' mail is carefully planned and improved where possible. Considering that one and a half million letters and parcels are being delivered each week to His Majesty's Forces in North Africa, there are very, very few instances of complaint regarding delivery. There is in fact no reason why correspondence which is correctly addressed should not reach the addressee in North Africa in reasonable time. It was natural, I think your Lord-ships will agree, under the conditions of battle and preparation for battle, with such totally inadequate communications over such long distances, that there should be some delay. This was inevitable in making a surprise entry into a foreign country in which arrangements could not of course be made in advance. Since the end of February, the noble Lord can be assured that criticism of the postal authorities has turned on the whole to enthusiastic praise and admiration. It is an ill service to the British Army, and, indeed, to the British war effort as a whole, that criticism, which might have had some justification on the grounds of delay due to these circumstances peculiar to the operations five or six months ago, is reiterated to-day when the service which is still working under such abnormal conditions is running smoothly and with efficiency.
623 It must also be pointed out that the utmost inconvenience is caused by letters being wrongly or inadequately addressed. This places an intolerable burden on the British Army postal authorities. The noble Lord may have been influenced—I think he clearly was—in tabling his Motion by the fact that certain letters he wrote to a soldier in the R.A.S.C. were not delivered. So anxious were the War Office and the Post Office to clear up this mystery that exhaustive inquiries were made. It transpired that the driver with whom the noble Lord was corresponding, prior to joining his present company, was at a transit camp where there was another driver of the same name and some con-fusion did occur with regard to the disposal of the correspondence for the two men. This matter was taken up by the War Office and it is hoped that such occasional confusion owing to similar names and change of location may be avoided in future. If the noble Lord had a closer acquaintance with the Army he would, however, be quick I think to realize that to address a letter to a man in that very large Corps—the R.A.S.C.—without full particulars of the unit and sections of the unit is putting a burden upon the Army in the Field which, unless unavoidable, it ought not to be asked to bear.
I hope I have convinced your Lord-ships that this matter is one that has been very near to our heart. As anyone who has taken part in operations of a minor character will realize, there are extreme difficulties in such a case; and those who appreciate the immensity of the achievement in the way of communications in North Africa, will agree, I think, that this is not a subject in which the Army has failed in its duty to those serving in the Forces.
LORD FARINGDONMy Lords, the reply of the noble Lord would be eminently satisfactory if it were not directly contrary to experience. I have heard with surprise Mr. John Hilton's remarks. I admit that I used a personal case as an illustration. It was a case that came close to my hand and seemed a fairly good case. It is not a fact that the correspondence was incorrectly addressed. With one exception all letters were ad-dressed with the unit number. The exception was one letter I received from a transit camp with such an indefinite 624 address that I sent an answer without the unit number. All previous and all later letters were fully and correctly addressed. At the time I brought the matter up in your Lordships' House four months ago the noble Lord who replied announced the institution of airgraph and air mail letters. So far as I can judge, not only from my own experience but from the experience of a great number of friends and acquaintances, the airgraph and air mail letter service has proved no more satisfactory than the ordinary service. The fault clearly lies in the distribution of letters once they have arrived in Africa, and I am very sorry to have to say that I am quite unconvinced by the noble Lord's argument.
To start with, the delivery of letters has not improved so far as I can judge, though it is naturally difficult to judge from a distance. We all appreciate very fully the difficulties of the Army postal authorities at the beginning of the campaign, but when the campaign is in full swing I think the service should be very much more satisfactory. The noble Lord tried to suggest that I was doing a disservice to the Army by referring to events five months old. That is not the case and I deny it most emphatically. I have raised the matter because I have good reason to believe that it is in fact the present experience of the troops in North Africa that they are not receiving their letters. In raising it in your Lordships' House, so far from doing any harm to the war effort, my belief is that I am doing exactly the contrary. Unless the distribution of these mails is improved, I believe very considerable and real harm will be done.
I confess that I am very dissatisfied with the noble Lord's reply. It seems to me to show most regrettable complacency regarding a situation which is causing considerable distress throughout the country. I know that I am expressing the feelings of a very large group of people—probably a group of people two or three times as large as the whole of our North African Forces, since one has to conclude that every member of those Forces has probably more than one correspondent. They are all dissatisfied. It is useless, and what is more it is unjust and unfair, for the War Office to pat itself on the back and say that people who raise this common complaint in public are doing damage to the war effort. They are doing nothing of the sort. The people who are doing 625 damage to the war effort are the people who are complacent or who make excuses which are incorrect. I am so dissatisfied that it is with some doubt that I even ask your Lordships' permission to withdraw my Motion for Papers. I sincerely hope that what I have said may induce the noble Lord to represent to the War Office the strong feelings which not only I but a very great number of people in this country hold, and to see that this service is improved. With the consent of your Lordships I will withdraw my Motion.
§ LORD CROFTMy Lords, may I have your Lordships' permission to add just a few words? The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, really must not say that all the troops are dissatisfied. We have very ample means—greater means than has the noble Lord—of knowing the feelings of the soldiers. We have welfare officers all through the Army—
LORD FARINGDONMy Lords, I did not say that the troops were dissatisfied. I have no knowledge of the troops. I said that writers of letters in this country were dissatisfied.
§ LORD CROFTThe noble Lord now tells the House that he has no knowledge of the troops. I apologize. I thought for one moment that he was saying that the troops were dissatisfied.
§ LORD CROFTI thought he was speaking of correspondents in the Army. I can give the noble Lord this assurance, that we have complete evidence of the great change and of the wonderful improvement which has taken place in regard to the delivery of mails in this area. I can give your Lordships the assurance, which has come to me from all quarters, that this improvement has been steady and sure in spite of great difficulties. It must, I think, be confessed that the postal machinery for the Forces in that particular theatre of operations is now about as good as we can hope that it will be. Nevertheless, we shall never cease from trying to make it better, because we all realize what an important matter this is from the point of view of the happiness of the troops. I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing forward this Motion, and for taking this interest in the morale of the Army.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.