V-Mail Envelopes Paperback – March 4, 2026

During WWII the US allowed reduced-rate airmail to and from members of its armed forces abroad. The mail from millions of service men and women taking advantage of these concessionary rates, and mail from their families writing to them, put a huge strain on the air transport system. To help lessen this strain the US introduced V-mail, a system of reducing a standardized letter sheet to a single frame of 16mm film, which would on arrival be turned into a photographic print about half the size of the original. Flying V-mail film reduced the weight of mail by about 98% compared to paper letters, and freed up planes for combat rather than carrying mail.Over the course of the war over a billion V-mails were photographically processed, and these then required envelopes in which they could be delivered. In this volume the author catalogs hundreds of types of these envelopes, produced by dozens of manufacturers, used to send and return processed V-mail to and from US forces in WWII. The bulk of these were produced domestically, but separate chapters detail those produced in England, Australia and the Middle East.Each type of envelope is illustrated with detailed descriptions of technical details, and a Bibliography including the relevant records sets found in the US National Archives is included. Read more