POSTAL AND OPERATION OVERLORD - HPC AND APDC

Home Postal Centre RE

The Home Postal Centre (HPC) was the core of the Army Postal Service, for not only was it the collecting and despatching centre for all Army and RAF correspondence, it also acted as a recruitment, training and reinforcement depot, as well as, a Records Office for the Royal Engineers (Postal Section) and a supply centre for Postal Units world-wide.

Home Postal Centre was divided into several departments and branches responsible for their own part of the postal operation, such as the Sorting offices, Inquiry Branch, Returned Letter Branch, Locations Branch, Motor Transport, Telegram and Airgraph Departments. Each branch and department was manned by RE (PS) and ATS personnel. Heavy manual tasks, such as, carrying parcel bags, were often undertaken by Conscientious Objectors assigned to HPC RE.

The first Home Postal Depot was set up in Reading but move shortly after to Bournemouth where it remained untill it moved to Nottingham in May 1941, where the organisation requisitioned 140 of the city's buildings for working and billeting purposes, such as the Vyvella factory and the Trent Bridge Cricket ground. It remained in Nottingham until 1947, when it moved to Sutton Coldfield to take over the vacant buildings, which during the war had housed the American Army Postal Depot.

Thoughout the war the sorting and despatching functions of the HPC operated 24 hours 7 days a week.

In addition to normal trains and road service schedules specially dedicate trains were used to carry mail to and from the Home Postal Centre.

After the fall of France and the debacle in Norway, Britain prepared itself for invasion from Nazi Germany. The Army Postal Services played its part in that defence by forming a postal service, based upon six Army Postal Distribution Centres, providing postal support to units around the country.

• London - APDC 1
• Bristol - APDC 2
• Leeds - APDC 3
• Crewe - APDC 4
• Edinburgh - APDC 5
• Belfast - APDC 6

This organisation developed the concept of "Closed Addresses" (e.g. No Rank Name, Unit, c/o APO England), which assisted in providing the necessary security to ensure the masking of troop movements during the build-up for D Day and the subsequent success of Operation Overlord (D Day landings). The closed address concept was the forerunner of today's BFPO address system.

Mail circulated between the GPO, the Home Postal Centre RE and the APDCs by rail and road. Units collected their mail from their respective APDCs.