Around the World
George Struble
twice - in 82 days. Rund um die Welt - zweimal -
in 82 Tagen. Jules Vernes wäre begeistert gewesen!
Since Hawaii is almost exactly half way around the world from Switzerland, it is understandable that mail from Switzerland to Hawaii could be sent either east or west. And if mail had to be returned to sender, there is again a choice of returning it going east or west. This is
illustrated by a pair of covers, each of which continued the way it came and thus became an around-the-world cover. And the two covers went in opposite directions!
The first cover (Fig. 1) was mailed at the Dubendorf Flugplatz outside Zürich on August 21, 1934. The sender specified airmail via a KLM flight to the Netherland Indies. I speculate that the sender chose that route because the cover would be flown further by KLM than the flight across the United States. He was well aware that no mail-carrying flights yet crossed the Atlantic, nor the Pacific from the U.S. to Hawaii. The cover was flown to Budapest, where it received a transit cancel August 22, and was picked up by the KLM flight. KLM flew it to Singapore, via Cairo and Bangkok. It was carried by ship to Hong Kong, arriving there September 8. It arrived in Honolulu on October 4. We don’t know how long it had to wait for a boat, either in Singapore or Hong Kong. The total transit time Zürich to Honolulu was 44 days.
No such address
The postal clerk in Honolulu wrote «no such address» and returned it to the sender. The route chosen was via San Francisco (or maybe Seattle) and New York, continuing the cover’s west-to-east journey. A transit cancel shows that it arrived in New York October 15. Was it flown across the U.S.? It could have been. But it had to go by ship from Honolulu to the U.S. west coast. One more ship voyage took the cover across the Atlantic; it reached Flums – the sender’s return address – on October 24. Thus the total travel time on its journey around the world was 62 days, of which Switzerland to Hawaii via Singapore and Hong Kong was 44 days and Hawaii back to Switzerland across the U.S. was 18 days. The second cover was mailed in Brunnen, Switzerland, on August 4, 1939. By that time the transportation options had changed dramatically. In 1935, Clipper service flown by Pan American Airways provided airmail between San Francisco and not only Hawaii but other destinations as far as Manila and Hong Kong. The airmail rate structure from Switzerland added the Clipper service in 1936. In 1939, planes began carrying mail across the Atlantic between Southampton and New York. The first flight from Southampton, flown by Imperial Airways, was June 27. With those flights available, the route across the Atlantic and the United States was the obvious best choice, and was indeed specified by the sender. Transit cancels show New York August 7 and San Francisco August 8. It arrived in Honolulu on August 10, having done every leg of the trip by air! Total transit time was six days. For whatever reason, the letter had to be returned to Mr. Gütsch in Brunnen; I presume he was the sender. The nice people in Honolulu wanted to expedite the return, so they asked for Clipper service to Hong Kong. They even contributed a dollar in U.S. postage, and a couple of airmail stickers on the back. As I read the postage rates, the postage by Clipper to Hong Kong was 70 cents. They reposted the letter very promptly; the U.S. airmail stamps were canceled on August 10. It is noteworthy that these were the airmail stamps issued in 1935 to celebrate the beginning of the Clipper service. A backstamp shows arrival in Hong Kong August 16. A final backstamp shows arrival back in Brunnen on August 24. It could have been flown all the way back to Switzerland, but waited a few days for the next flight at various points; not all routes had daily service! Why was the cover returned to Switzerland via Hong Kong instead of returning the way it came? I might speculate that the people in Hawaii were worried that World War II would break out and close airmail routes between New York and Switzerland. This cover took six days to reach Hawaii, and 14 days to return via Hong Kong, for a round-the world time of 20 days. Jules Verne would have been thrilled!
Copyright
An earlier version of this article was published in «TELL», the journal of the «American Helvetia Philatelic Society». It is published here with permission.
Fig. 2: Around the world east to west in 20 days in 1939
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