WWII V-mail in the Jimmy Ley Collection

James “Jimmy” Ley attended Grinnell College for two years before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Force in 1942. An extensive collection of correspondence written by Ley during his time at Grinnell and in the Army Air Force, as well as personal items, photographs, and military documents were donated by members of his family to the college archives in the fall of 2014.

The correspondence in the Jimmy Ley Collection provides wonderful insight into the life of a Grinnell student during the early 1940s, and also of a solider during the Second World War. Ley was a prolific letter writer. The majority his letters were written on paper and mailed home to his parents and other family members. However, when Ley was shipped overseas to England, he and his family exchanged a few letters using Victory Mail, also known as V-Mail.

V-Mail, invented by Kodak, used a photographic process to take pictures of handwritten messages using microfilm. The microfilm was then mailed overseas. Once it arrived at the destination, it was enlarged and printed for the recipient to read as easily as a normal letter. Shipping microfilm instead of sending full sheets of paper in envelopes drastically reduced the weight, speed, and cost of overseas correspondence.

In this particular V-Mail letter sent on August 6, 1943, Ley writes little about the war.  V-Mail was censored before it was sent, and patrons can see the censor stamp in the upper left-hand corner. Ley does mention that his squadron is sleeping in tents, claims that the food is very good, and also talks about visiting a local town near where he is stationed. Ley sent this message about half a year before he went missing-in-action over Abbeville, France while serving as an engineer gunner on a mission.

To see more of Ley’s correspondence, including postcards, handwritten letters, as well as more examples of V-Mail, visit the Special Collections and Archives. Special Collections and Archives is open to the public 1:30-5:00pm Monday through Friday and mornings by appointment.

You can also read more about V-mail at the National World War II Museum website.