Regards,
Tathagata Chatterjee

The idea was to use surplus missiles to deliver snail mail ( wonder if you’d still call it snail mail if the concept had caught on :) )

Good question!

1. This is the first ever instance, in 1959, when a cruise missile was used – this was a commemorative diagram on one of the envelopes, I think.

2. This is the picture of the mail being successfully retrieved

In 1959 the U.S. Navy submarine USS Barbero assisted the Post Office Department, the predecessor of the USPS in its search for faster, more efficient forms of mail transportation with the first and only delivery of “Missile Mail”. Shortly before noon on 8 June 1959, Barbero fired a SSM-N-8 Regulus cruise missile — its nuclear warhead having earlier been replaced by two official Post Office Department mail containers — at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport, Florida. Twenty-two minutes later, the missile struck its target where its intact cargo (commemorative postal covers addressed to various government officials) was recovered and sorted at a nearby post office. Some of the officials were Postmaster General Summerfield and Eddie Rickenbacker as seen in pic 2

first ever missile mail(pic 1).

USS Barbero (SS-317) assisted the United States Postal Service (USPS) in its search for faster, more efficient forms of mail transportation. The USPS tried their first and only delivery of “Missile Mail”, though the idea of delivering mail by rocket was not new. Shortly before noon on 8 June 1959, Barbero fired a Regulus cruise missile at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station, Mayport, Florida. Twenty-two minutes later the missile struck its target; its nuclear warhead had been replaced by two official USPS mail containers.
The mail consisted entirely of commemorative postal covers addressed to President of the United States Dwight Eisenhower, other government officials, the Postmasters General of all members of the Universal Postal Union, and so on.

(i just finished my ETM exam and see the need to provide unnecessary data)