This first flight cover was sent from Capetown at the south tip of
Africa.
It was carried on a first flight to Tananarive
in central Madagascar.
The destination was Majunga
(now Mahajanga) on the northwest coast of Madagascar.
The cover is annotated "via Broken Hill"
below the trilingual airmail etiquette.
The routing via Broken Hill (now Kabwe) in Zambia suggests the
following scenario for the flight:
The cover was flown from Capetown to Broken Hill via Imperial Airways
which had inagurated the route in 1932.
At Broken Hill it went aboard a Régie Malgache
return flight to Tananarive via Tete in Portuguese East Africa.
This flight was the return flight of the first flight from Tanarive to
Broken Hill on July 28 (see below).
The flight was probably piloted by the two founders of Régie
Malgache,
René Lefevre
and Jean Assollant, who flew from Tananarive to
Broken Hill.
The aircraft was an SPCA 218
F-AKDY.*
F-AKDY 'came a cropper' later in Mozambique (from ICARE article*)
The cover was franked with a margin copy of a
1920 1s3d violet King George VII (SG 13).
The sender was C. Wyndham who apparently was a member of the House of
Assembly.
The addressee was a relative, L. A. Wyndham, at Poste Restante in
Majunga.
There is a Capetown CDS.
The cover was received in Tananarive on August 4.
A slogan roller arrival cancel was applied on the reverse but I cannot
decipher the slogan.
MADAGASCAR | VOUS GEFRE SES | -- VANILLES -- | ???????.
Madagascar | offers you its | vanillas | ?????.
Suggestions?
It then proceeded to Majunga where a receiver
noted its arrival on
August 9.
C. Wyndham prepared other airmail covers
during this time.
Another cover prepared by Wyndham (from ICARE article*)
First Flight Cover from Tananarive to Paris via Broken Hill
(from ICARE article*)
*Thanks to David Benson for supplementary
information
on the probable routing for this first flight via Broken Hill and to
Michel Brisebois for further detail and images from
"Poste
aérienne
française volume 1",
by Gérard Collot in issue
no. 173 (2000) of ICARE.
Thanks to Michel as well for extending the
translation of the roller cancel.
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