Ships stranded in the Suez Canal

Now let's dive into today's story. We all remember that there was a another war of survival in our area in 1967 and if you didn’t know, well now you do. The biggest losers were the Egyptians who once again lost control of the entire Sinai Peninsula but it doesn’t really matter as they got everything back again, but that's not the point.

On May 22nd, 1967, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and once again blocked the entry of ships on their way to Israel. Déjà vu? After all, in 1956 they did the same thing and the Sinai War broke out. But in June 1967, 14 innocent cargo ships from 8 different countries, entered the Suez Canal on their way north but no one bothered to pick up the phone and warn them that war was about to break out. Now as you now know a war broke out and the Egyptians lost all of a Sinai and finally decided to close the canal, there was no entry and no exit.

So the ships had to dock at a lake called the Great Bitter Lake. They waited there for the war to end. Well this was a short war but they suddenly realized that Egypt was not reopening the canal. "Let us go home" they cried out, but Nasser, the President of Egypt had other plans, the ships were hostages of 8 countries: England, West Germany, Poland, Sweden, Bulgaria, France, USA and Czechoslovakia and why not try to blackmail some of these countries.

The truth is that I do not know if that happened and maybe just telling stories but the fact is that Nasser did not release the ships and Sadat who replaced Nasser also didn’t release them, so they must have had a reason. In essence Egypt only controlled the western side and Israel occupied the eastern side. In practice it was possible to operate the canal together but this was not realistic as it would also allow ships going to Israel to use the canal and it would add salt to their wounds of their great loss and in addition, heaven forbid that an Arab state would cooperate with Israel?

The trapped ships were quite active during the war, using their boats to help Egyptian soldiers who fled Sinai and the doctor on the Polish ship treated about 400 wounded soldiers, very nice of them. There were also about 200 passengers on the ships and at the end of June they were allowed to return home and in August the crews on all the ships were replaced.

Now we have a problem and anyone who has gone through a real lockdown, like Israel’s first Corona lockdown, knows what it is like to be imprisoned in the same place for a long time. So you have a good book, you’re finished in three days; you'll watch a video on the internet, well no, because in 1967 there was no video or internet.

What do bored, restless adults do? Unite! And so the Great Bitter Lake Association was born. The sailors played a wide variety of different activities together such as: cards, chess, table tennis and more. Remember this is a time before Facebook so they had to actually meet, and unlike today, without masks! Who knows when we will return to that? So what else? They played football and handball on the deck of the English ship "Port Invercargill" and of course they had medical service by the doctor from the Polish ship "Djakarta" which we mentioned earlier. The staffs exchanged groceries as well as prepared food, as I teach my daughter "Sharing is Caring". One Swedish ship, the "M/S Killara" had a pool and the other Swedish ship the "M/S Nippon" had a gym. Of course one of their favorite things was movies, not video, there used to be such a thing. In 1968 they all united for an Olympic game of their own.

But how do you communicate with your family? There were no mobile phones, so you need to send letters! And what will they use for stamps? "Let's make them ourselves!" But hold your horse, wait a moment, not everyone can print stamps and mail them, it is not exactly legitimate. If it was legitimate, I would print my own stamps. So in the beginning, towards the end of 1967, the post offices in Egypt, Cairo and Alexandria were very tolerant of the sailors' distress and allowed the letters to be sent without any real stamps and of course the eight countries to which the ships belonged, accepted the stamps of the GBLA and even encouraged the practise. The post office of the organization was on the German ship "Northwind" and everyone gathered there to send and receive letters and the postman took the mail to Egyptian post offices for delivery. Not every postal clerk received the stamps as there was no official procedure in place and quite a few of the postmen demanded that they use regular Egyptian stamps..

Since there was no official status, the GBLA applied to the International Postal Association UPU for recognition since the letters were sent by sea and as of 1891, there was a law that allows letters to be sent by sea, PAQUEBOT and this also applies to the GBLA. The UPU accepted the claim that Clause 21 was valid for these ships and at the end of 1969 introduced a change to the bylaws to allow these stamps and make the practice official and it was accepted as Clause 23.

Only in 1975 did the Suez Canal reopen and the ships were finally allowed to leave the quarantine. But between 1967 and 1975, there was also 1973 and of course the Egyptians attacked Israel. This time the ships were inactive except for one, the American ship "Africa Glenn" which was abandoned and the Egyptian army used it as an observation and direction. As a result, the IDF sank the ship.

Real letters from the first period, that is, until 1970, sell for hundreds of dollars. Personally if I did not know the story behind the stamps, I would laugh at the stamps and think it is not true. They were simple stamps with bad graphics and looked as if they were cut with scissors, but that's the advantage of knowledge and that's why I pass the knowledge on.

The story is based on the stamp catalog of the Slovakian Peter Valdner, the Great Bitter Lake Association. Contact: valdpete@yahoo.com. Here is the site: https://valdpete.blogspot.com/p/great-bitter-lake-association-catalogue.html