I was watching Band of Brother and wondering how those paratroopers got letters from home. Did their family need to know their nearest base? Or could they simply write their name and battallion? If I want to mail a package to a sailor do I just the ship’s name? Or a port? I’m not actually mailing anything I’m just curious how that works. How much postage do you need to mail to a ship overseas?
https://www.pa.ng.mil/Community/Mailing-Deployed-Service-Members/
Basically their unit (or ship) gets assigned a special military PO box and the military takes care of it from there. USPS says you just pay like a domestic letter or package. It’s almost certainly subsidized by the military. I assume the other package carriers are similar.
The USS Benjamin Franklin? That’s a sub, not a carrier
Should be able to send to the service member’s unit at FPO or APO depending on if they’re in the army, navy, etc. This page https://www.usps.com/ship/apo-fpo-dpo.htm has more info.
You can absolutely receive mail and packages when deployed in the military, even during wartime. When I was in the USMC, getting mail while out in the field was a bit of a psychological life line.
I loved when the elementary school care packages would come. Hell yeah lil Timmy I definitely fit it in there
It’s actually kind of neat. They have their own “state” codes for the Air Force or Navy, and that’s how the mail is handed over to the military. They do have to give an apo or the like, but the deployed know that before leaving so family knows how to write.
It gets murkier once it’s inside how they route the mail, don’t know for sure, but as long as you follow USPS guidelines it’ll get to them. So, part of your answer at least
Is it really overseas if they are on a ship in the sea?
Yes because if it was underseas it would be a submarine
I suddenly have a new understanding of the Supermarine Spitfire.
Ship mostly yes under normal conditions.
Submarines on the other hand…
The more info the better. Family and friends probably know:
Name or number of the unit/boat/airwing. Maybe even the smallest group like which platoon or squad.
I’m not sure if postage is still free. It was when I served back in the late '80s.
To send a piece of mail to a ship, you send it to a Fleet Post Office, listed as the city and state.
For example, if the ship is stationed in the pacific fleet (AP- armed forces pacific), you’d send it to:
Jane Q Sailor USS Whatever FPO AP (the unit zip code)
And the mail would be forwarded to the ship anywhere in the world to meet the ship with supplies. I don’t know all the codes, but they’re all similarly formatted.
They had their letters delivered to them at their duty station APO before their mission deployment. There’s no fucking way they could get a letter from home in the middle of combat during Operation Overlord.
I’m sure you imagine a Skyrim courier interrupting a U.S. soldier brutally wrestling and slitting a Nazi throat to tell him your grandmother said hi with included slutty nude photo in a Western Union telegram.
