How post reached the trenches in WW1

How 12.5 million letters reached the front line each week during the Great War

During WWI, letters from home were incredibly important to the millions of British soldiers fighting on the front line. This required a new postal network – stretching across the English Channel and beyond – to cope with the demand. A huge postal depot was built in London to process all of the correspondence.

Covering a massive five acres of Regent’s Park, the Home Depot sorted through millions of postcards, parcels and letters each week. The depot’s 2,500 staff were mostly female, filling many of the roles vacated by men serving in the Army. At the outbreak of the war, about 75,000 General Post Office (GPO) employees were released to fight for their country.

Once out of London, the mail faced the perilous Channel crossing. From February 1915 Germany began a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare, meaning its deadly U-boats began targeting and sinking Allied shipping. To counter this threat, in 1917, the Royal Navy began using a convoy system to escort and protect merchant vessels making the journey.

Arriving at the main ports of Le Havre, Boulogne or Calais, the mailbags were handed over to the Royal Engineers Postal Section and continued via truck, train or cart to the trenches. Soldiers often received food, clothing, tobacco and other luxuries from home, as well as news. On average, it took two days for letters to reach their destinations, but soldiers’ replies were often slower than this due to censorship screening, which was put in place to ensure morale and security were not jeopardised.