Description
Papua New Guinea 1952 ship fire scorched cover.
First Day cover with Bainings postmark 8 NO 52 sent to Melbourne. Scorched at the top. When Max Bulley wrote to the Postmaster at Bainings he received the reply dated 14 January 1953 to the effect that one bag of mail was partially damaged on board the vessel carrying it from Bainings to Rabaul.
The incident occurred around 10 November 1953. In attempting to identify the vessel carrying the mail Brian wrote to the Port authority at Rabaul, but has not received a reply. Bainings Post Office opened on 1 March 1951 and closed exactly two years later on 1 March 1953. There were only about twenty non-indigenous people at Bainings so the mail to Rabaul must have been small.
Only example of letter from Postmaster.
