Last Post exhibition to take place at the Churchill Museum & Cabinet War Rooms from November 2008
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The exhibition, Last Post: Remembering the First World War, marks the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War and will run from 6 November 2008 until 28 February 2009.
The exhibition will explore the tremendous contribution that the Post Office made to the war effort. The Post Office sent thousands of workers to fight on the front line in battalions such as the Post Office Rifles. It also provided a vital means of communication to keep soldiers in touch with their loved ones and enable military operations on a scale never attempted in any previous war.
At home, the Post Office continued against all odds to provide its vital function – keeping people in touch. This was invaluable in maintaining troop morale. Letters home were important proof that fathers, sons, grandfathers, uncles and nephews were still alive. Vast numbers of women were employed by the Post Office on the Home Front which helped provoke the major social reform that was to follow the end of the war.
At the front, the Army Postal Service carried letters and parcels between battalions and special base depots. Telephone equipment installed by the Post Office was vital to military success.
The postal service was also a tool of war and a vehicle for propaganda. The vital censorship operation set up to monitor correspondence helped the government to catch spies and control the dissemination of military information.
The exhibition will showcase important objects from both the BPMA and Imperial War Museum collections. There will be a diverse range of objects on display from uniforms to emotive oral histories and stunning Post Office posters.
The prize exhibit will be the Victoria Cross awarded to Post Office Rifleman, Sergeant Alfred Knight, for his bravery at the battle of Wurst Farm Ridge.