USA Philatelic Societies and Exhibitions.

I wondered why rocket mail was the central theme on these stamps and set about Googling to find out why. It appears that on June 8, 1959, the US Navy fired a Regulus I missile from the USS Barbero (SSG-317) and directed it to land at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station at Mayport, Florida, near Jacksonville. While the submarine had been docked in Norfolk, Virginia, Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield helped place two blue and red metal containers, holding 3,000 letters, inside the sub’s missile prior to the flight. The identical letters from the PMG, which enthusiastically announced the experiment, were addressed to President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, the Cabinet, Members of Congress, top federal and state officials, and postmasters around the world. The missile was fired from the submarine shortly before noon on the 8th and arrived at Mayport twenty-two minutes later. The rocket mail theme seems to have been an attempt to appeal to Summerfield's enthusiasm for the possibility of postal uses for the technology. The 1959 test firing was the only incidence of using a missile to carry mail in the US.