1944 letter arrives 66 years later...

Snail mail: Letter sent during WWII arrives in California 66 YEARS after it was posted

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 11:16 AM on 3rd March 2011

Many people will have had bad experiences with postal delivery in the past, but it's unlikely any of us will ever have to wait as long for a letter as one American lady has.

A World War II-era letter addressed to a woman at a Red Cross hospital in California has been delivered 66 years after was sent in Alabama.

The letter, postmarked August 9, 1944, only arrived last month, on February 16.

The letter, postmarked August 9, 1944, was sent from Alabama. It took such a long time to be delivered that the building on the address has long since been torn down

It is addressed to Miss R.T. Fletcher, American Red Cross Station Hospital, Camp Roberts, California. The woman has yet to be traced.

The letter took such a long time to arrive that Camp Roberts has long since closed, in 1970, so the letter was delivered to the Camp Roberts Historical Museum.

 

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Curator Gary McMaster says he hasn't opened the letter for privacy reasons, and so the mystery surrounding it remains. 

Camp Roberts closed in 1970, so the letter was delivered to the Camp Roberts Historical Museum

The envelope is torn where the return address would be located, so it's not clear who sent it. 

But the tear reveals a handwritten letter inside. 

'Most letters come from family or good friends, so we're thinking that this lady was from Montgomery and that the letter came from a friend or relative,' told USA Today.

Nurses checking a blood machine at the Camp Roberts Army Hospital in August 1951

Women who worked at the hospital, which was torn down a number of years ago, were typically nurses or administrative clerks.

The postal service has insisted that there is no way it could have been in the system for that long, and believes it was stored away in a house for many years before being recently posted.

'If it were three years ago, I would think it could have been in a tray or a sack or something, but that's just not possible,' Joseph Breckenridge, a postal service spokesman in Atlanta, told USA Today.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362478/Snail-mail-Letter-sent-WWII-arrives-California-66-YEARS-posted.html#ixzz1FXwn5NjU