V-Mail messages were small, almost illegible, 4" by 5" photographs of original mail sent to servicemen overseas or back home from soldiers.  One could write a personal message on a preprinted thin sheet of paper which would also serve as the envelope when folded.  The message was then sent to New York, Chicago, or San Francisco and  opened, sorted, and copied onto microfilm.  In that format, 1,700 microfilmed messages would be a tiny bundle the size of a cigarette pack, which saved bulk and weight.  Valuable cargo space then could be used for other wartime materials like food, ammunition, and fuel.  After the V-Mail was flown overseas as microfilm, it was processed into small, nearly unreadable copies (smaller that the example above) and distributed, bringing perhaps, a five-minute furlough to a husband, boyfriend, or son.  Newspapers reported that the urge to put love into the V-Mails to servicemen resulted in the Scarlet Scourge, lipstick kisses which clogged machines and showed up as gray blotches on the tiny final copies.