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Author
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Topic: Background behind 1944 Fort Bliss cover?
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Concorde001
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posted 04-03-2014 10:01 AM
   
I have found this cover in a collection I recently bought.  I tried to do some research but the only information I found was that it seems there have not been any launches in 1944 in Fort Bliss. Could anybody help me here? — Simon |
Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 2913
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 04-03-2014 11:19 AM
Yes, pictured in the cover's cachet is an Atlas-Agena D launch vehicle at the Cape's Pad 14. It appears to be a paste/glued-on picture photo, however, the Atlas-Agena combo-rocket didn't fly until the early 1960s with a "D" version first in Oct. 1963, almost 20 years after the cover's 1944 cancel year. |
Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 2913
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 04-03-2014 06:10 PM
Let me add to my prior above posting as I misread the topic thread. Sorry about that.It may not even be a prepared commemorative envelope cover for a missile/rocket test flight from the army base in March 1944, instead, maybe just a mailed letter inside to the addressee? But it does indicate to be a rocket-related cachet cover of some kind since there is a typed line at the bottom, "Experimental Test of High Alt. Rocket." An interesting cover indeed going back to a pioneer rocket development/research test facility here in the USA throughout the 1940s, just before the arrival of Dr. von Braun and his rocket team from war-time Germany. |
micropooz
Member Posts: 1512
From: Washington, DC, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 04-03-2014 06:38 PM
I have to agree with Ken. And I will take a less diplomatic tack than he has...I have never seen records of rocket tests at and/or managed-by Ft. Bliss prior to the arrival of von Braun's team. Given that the postmark on this cover predates the von Braun team arrival by approximately two years, and the (at least) 20-year-later addition of the color cachet to the cover, I would surmise that someone found a cover postmarked at Ft. Bliss during WWII, and tried to turn it into an early space cover with no historical basis for doing so. Just my opinion... |
Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 2913
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 04-04-2014 08:05 AM
Well said, Dennis, and perhaps even the typed-in two lines, along with the later-added photo cachet, were never a part of the original item. Maybe somebody was indeed trying to make something more of it as an early "rare find" of a Ft. Bliss "rocket test flight" cover from the 1940s. |
Concorde001
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posted 04-05-2014 08:57 AM
Thanks a lot for the info. I keep you informed if I have found some additional background on it. |
LM1
Member Posts: 667
From: New York, NY
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 04-05-2014 12:42 PM
Speaking of Fort Bliss, the US issued a stamp in 1948 for the 100tn Anniversary of Fort Bliss. It shows a stylized rocket. This was the first US space stamp. Can anyone identify this rocket, or is it supposed to be some version of a V-2 rocket? |
p51
Member Posts: 1642
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 04-05-2014 10:23 PM
quote:
Originally posted by micropooz:
Given that the postmark on this cover predates the von Braun team arrival by approximately two years, and the (at least) 20-year-later addition of the color cachet to the cover, I would surmise that someone found a cover postmarked at Ft. Bliss during WWII, and tried to turn it into an early space cover with no historical basis for doing so.
I agree to a point.My primary hobby is military history, especially the US in WW2, and I've seen hundreds of cancelled envelopes over the years. One thing I have seen several times is when someone would take a WW2 envelope and put markings on it. I suspect it's an older generation thing (much like how pre-baby-Boomers often write directly onto the images in original prints of photos, I will never understand that). But I'd suspect that maybe, this could have been someone just adding that to bring some sort of historical context to the current time when that was added, from an older item. That's my thought, anyway. |
Cozmosis22
Member Posts: 968
From: Texas * Earth
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 04-07-2014 11:31 AM
At the time this was mailed a certain Professor Robert Goddard had been living a mere 200 miles away at his Mescalero Ranch near Roswell. Though he was spirited away by the Navy to Annapolis in the summer of 1942, it is not impossible that some of his experimental units were tested at the Army's artillery range near El Paso. Of course those rockets would have been small compared to the photo cache (obviously a later addition) but anything postmarked at Ft. Bliss during WWII is a good find. |
mikepf
Member Posts: 441
From: San Jose, California, USA
Registered: Mar 2002
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posted 04-07-2014 01:11 PM
The obvious and only logical answer is time-traveling aliens.
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