Royal Mail to release stamps to celebrate 80th VE Day
A main set of 10 stamps will honour men and women who made contributions during the Second World War, while a mini-sheet of stamps has images of Dame Vera Lynn from different aspects of her wartime career.
People featured include George Arthur Roberts, who was the first black man to join the London Auxiliary Fire Service in 1938 and Mary Morris whose diaries describe how she nursed troops returning wet and wounded from Dunkirk.
A stamp will also honour John Harrison who served in the Royal Navy on the destroyer HMS Belfast and was responsible for maintaining 'A' and 'B' gun turrets at the front of the ship.
The stamps will honour men and women who made contributions during the Second World War (Image: Royal Mail/PA Wire) Bhanbhagta Gurung, who fought in Operation Longcloth in Burma, now Myanmar, and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery under heavy fire, will also be honoured in the stamp collection.
Thomas Peirson Frank, a civil engineer and surveyor whose rapid-response teams repaired more than 100 breaches of the Thames wall during air raids, and William Tutte, a codebreaker whose work was key to decrypting the Lorenz cypher, the German code used for top-level communication and intelligence, will also be honoured.
Royal Mail will be applying a special VE80 postmark on stamped mail in the week of the anniversary in May.
The business is also supporting VE Mail, a letter-writing initiative connecting schoolchildren with Second World War veterans.
A mini-sheet of stamps has images of Dame Vera Lynn from different aspects of her wartime career (Image: Royal Mail/PA Wire)
Emma Gilthorpe, chief executive of Royal Mail, said: 'Behind every victory of a nation there are countless unsung heroes whose courage and sacrifice shaped the future of the world.
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'On VE Day, we remember not only the leaders and generals, but the silent warriors whose contributions echo through history.
'For the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Royal Mail is proud to issue these stamps honouring the courage, sacrifice, and resilience of those who fought for freedom and peace.'
The stamps and a range of collectable products are available to pre-order from Thursday, April 24 and will go on general sale from Thursday, May 1.
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