Welcome to the 17th installment of “Cancelling My Life” in which I am taking a look at postmarked items in my collections, starting from shortly before my birth on December 3, 1965. For a more detailed look at my personal philatelic history, take a look at the first entry here.
Today, we are looking at . . .
November 29, 1965, was a Monday. Let’s get right to the covers for once as I have nothing else to report about that day 60 years ago.
This First Day Cover bears United Nations Scott #151-153, three stamps (4¢, 5¢, and 11¢) issued in conjunction with a World Population Conference held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to discuss the unprecedented increase in population in many parts of the world. The stamps were issued to emphasize the importance of the population growth and its problems. The design by Olav S. Mathiesen features three stylized human silhouettes increasing in size against a patchwork of colorful geometric fields, symbolizing demographic growth and its global impact. The UN emblem in red “reinforces the organization’s commitment to planning for sustainable development.” The stamps were printed by Österreichische Staatsdruckerei (Austrian State Printer) in Vienna using multicolor photogravure in print runs of 1,966,033 for the 4 (U.S.) cent denomination; 2,298,731 for the 5-cent; and 1,557,589 copies of the 11-cent value. The stamps measure 36×26 mm each and are comb-perforated 12.
This cover was carried aboard the first DC-9 on Delta Airlines’ route from Memphis, Tennessee, to Kansas City, Missouri. As I lived in the Kansas City area from 1977 until 1994, this is one place I tend to accumulate cancellations from. As this flight was in 1965, I know that it landed at what is known to locals as the old downtown airport, just north of the Missouri River from the skyscrapers of the city. I recall a flood circa 1992 during which I took photos of the runways from one of those skyscrapers; they appeared to be sloping into the river as the water was so high. What is now known as Mid-Continent International Airport was built some distance away in North Kansas City, and opened in 1972.
This is a commercial cover sent from the Lutheran Hospital in Fort-Dauphin, Madagascar, to Montgomery Ward — a mail-order business and later department store chain founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1872. I wonder what the hospital was ordering? Fort-Dauphin is a port in the southeast portion of the island, important since the early 1500s. It was also the first French settlement in Madagascar. The cover bears two copies of Scott #329, issued on May 7, 1962, depicting Lake Tritriva is lake that fills an extinct crater in a region notable also for the presence of many hot springs. The lake is up to 160m (520 ft) deep, making it Madagascar’s deepest lake. There’s a strict taboo (Fady) for this lake and swimming is not allowed. The other stamp on this cover was issued on October 20, 1964, and is listed as #397 in the Scott catalogue. It bears a carved statue of a woman, part of a set of three stamps showcasing Malagasy art.
Lastly, I present three covers, all posted from the then-USS Akta (AGB-3) — a U.S. Navy icebreaker stationed in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, during the 1965-1966 Operation Deep Freeze. Two were addressed to the (West) German Embassy in Washington, D.C. The McMurdo Sound, the southernmost passable body of water in the world, located approximately 1,300 kilometers (810 miles) from the South Pole. Discovered in February 1841 by Captain James Clark Ross of the Royal Navy, the sound serves as a resupply route for cargo ships and airplanes that land on floating ice airstrips near McMurdo Station. The McMurdo seasonal Ice Runway was operated from October to December from the 1950s to the 2010s, then in December the ice breaks up and McMurdo port is opened by an Icebreaker ship and ships can resupply the Antarctic bases.
USS Atka was first commissioned as USCGC Southwind (WAG-280) as the third of the Wind class of icebreakers operated by the United States Coast Guard. Her keel was laid on July 20, 1942, at the Western Pipe and Steel Company shipyards in San Pedro, California. She was christened by Mrs. Ona Jones and launched on March 8, 1943, and commissioned on July 15, 1944. Wind-class icebreakers had hulls of unprecedented strength and structural integrity, with a relatively short length in proportion to the great power developed, a cut away forefoot, rounded bottom, and fore, aft and side heeling tanks. Diesel electric machinery was chosen for its controllability and resistance to damage. Southwind, along with the other Wind-class icebreakers, was heavily armed for an icebreaker due to her design being crafted during World War II.
After service on the Greenland Patrol, and assisting USCGC Eastwind in capturing the German weather ship Externsteine, Southwind was transferred to the Soviet Union in March 1945 as part of the Lend-Lease Program. The ship served in the Soviet merchant marine under the name Admiral Makarov (Адмирал Макаров) until being returned to the U.S. Navy on December 28, 1949, at Yokosuka, Japan. In 1950 the ship was transferred to the U.S. Navy and rechristened as USS Atka (AGB-3), after the small Aleutian island of Atka. Throughout her career in the Navy, the icebreaker followed a routine established by the changing seasons. In the late spring, she would set sail for either the northern or southern polar regions to resupply American and Canadian air bases and weather and radar stations. In early fall, she would return to her homeport of Boston for upkeep and repairs. In the winter, the ship would sail various routes in the North Atlantic Ocean to gather weather data before returning to Boston in early spring for repairs and preparation for her annual polar expedition.
On October, 31, 1966, the icebreaker was transferred to the United States Coast Guard and christened again as USCGC Southwind (WAGB-280). Her homeport was changed to the United States Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, Baltimore, Maryland. After a shakedown cruise to Bermuda she proceeded on her first operational cruise north to Thule, Greenland. Southwind deployed to the Arctic in 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973, as well as to the Antarctic in December 1967, December 1968 and January 1972. In 1968 she was involved in a diplomatic incident between Chile and Argentine about navigation rights in the Beagle channel. In September 1970, Southwind visited the port of Murmansk, being the first U.S. naval vessel to visit a Soviet port since the start of the Cold War. During that visit, she took aboard a boilerplate (BP-1227) from the Apollo program. The boilerplate had been lost in the North Sea in early 1970, recovered by a Soviet fishing trawler in the Bay of Biscay, transferred to the Soviet Union, and passed to Southwind on 5 September 1970. From December 1972 to May 1974, Southwind was stationed in Milwaukee to do icebreaking on the Great Lakes. The ship was decommissioned on May 31, 1974, and sold for scrap on March 17, 1976, for $231,079.00 to Union Mineral & Alloy Corporation of New York.
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