Description
Postal history discovery: 31 Jan 1949 postmarked air mail cover sent from BEIRUT Lebanon and addressed to serviceman at Royal Air Force RAF base in AMMAN Jordan, mixed franked 35 Lebanese Piastres + 0.50 Syrian Piastres stamps (1940 landscapes series; possibly used as a 'Palestine welfare tax' stamp in lieu of the national issue - but unusual) & tied by 3x strikes of the local postmark, including the Syrian stamp; subsequently opened and resealed by the Israeli censor in HAIFA chet 1021 & tied by chet 14 censor as approved + tied by Mandate-era "RETURNED TO SENDER | NO SERVICE" + bilingual English/French "STATE OF ISRAEL" handstamps - these likely applied in JERUSALEM. Here an undocumented case of misdirected mail:
Daryl Kibble's comprehensive study of mail of the Arab-Israeli conflict depicts an identical cover, also posted in Beirut on 31 Jan 1949 and addressed to Bethlehem Palestine via Amman - here too censored in Haifa by the same censor 1021 and approved by #14 & also marked by the same 2x instructional handstamps - but Kibble misread the date as "1948" and so suggested a different evaluation to this description; his cover (displayed in this description as the final image shown) is clearly missing a postage stamp likely making it also "air mail" as this one.
In light of no press reports about a diverted flight in this period (as sometimes encountered in this chapter of postal history), this cataloguer believes that these two covers were part of a misdirected bag of mail, likely carried by AIR FRANCE which serviced both Beirut and Haifa airports (unique in this period, with transport between Lebanon and Palestine/Israel effected by Compagnie Generale de Transports airline - CGDT): Air France originally serviced Lydda airport until its closure on 26 April 1948 (Air France being the last reported departure), then it transferred operations to Tel Aviv airport until this was bombed by the Egyptian Air Force on 15 May (damaging an Air France airplane); civilian aviation was thereafter transferred to Haifa airport. In late Nov. Lydda reopened but Air France is documented continuing service to Haifa into Jan. 1949 - hence the Haifa censoring as seen on this mail.
Both Lebanon and Jordan were in a state of war with Israel at this time: the "No Service" marking in black is not as per Kibble's research - at 54mm wide & large lettering it's larger than the one documented used (in black ink) in Haifa and its letter spacing is different to that documented used (in violet) in Tel Aviv - Proud & Sacher document this marking being used in JERUSALEM (as device #I9 / L27) during the Mandate; Kibble's illustrated cover shows these markings - identical as on this cover - tying the censor seal and so this cataloguer believes that indeed the instructional markings on the cover were applied after the censoring and are from the JERUSALEM head post office, here a discovery as this is undocumented in Kibble.
Lacking any signs that it was transferred to the Dead Letter Office (in the Kirya in Tel Aviv) the cover was likely returned to the Office of Exchange (post office) which organized the mail on this flight by way of a 'Bulletin of Verification'. Rare postal history & unusual mixed franking.
