V Mail was private communication, not government records. Even if the microfilm were still in existence it probably wouldn't be released to the public, certainly not if there is any chance that anyone mentioned in it was still alive. The purpose of V Mail was to solve a logistics problem. Instead of shipping large volumes of mail, it was microfilmed and only the film was shipped overseas. I suspect that, after a short period to verify that the hard copies of the V Mail had reached their destinations, the original letters and the microfilm were destroyed for privacy, security, and logistical reasons. Since the microfilm would have served its purpose in a few weeks at most, it most likely wasn't of archival quality. -----Original Message----- From: John Huguenard [mailto:jhuguena@bellsouth.net] Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 11:08 PM To: NY-Military-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: V Mail from Europe Patrick, Would you or anyone out there have any idea if these records still exist? If so, how would they be accessed? Any ideas? Kay Huguenard Tap716@aol.com wrote: > This mourning while watching the history channel a segment about how mail > was handled from the GI"s was aired I found this very interesting as all on > the list may also. It was said that the GI's would write their letters home > and the letters would go to a area to where they were microfilmed tthe > mocrofilm wasthen sent to the U.S to be copied to paper that was how the > letters were delivered to thier destination. Wouldn't microfilm be a great > asset to us all look for our relatives who were there at the time. > Patrick Fuchs