The United Kingdom’s Royal Mail has withdrawn a stamp design in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, because it accidentally depicted U.S. troops landing in Indonesia, not Allied forces in France. Historians spotted that one stamp featured the wrong type of landing craft and that the photograph actually showed American troops landing at the town of Sarmi in what was then Dutch New Guinea, on May 17, 1944. The stamp was captioned “Allied soldiers and medics wade ashore,” but was actually taken in what is modern-day Indonesia. Those who saw the error in a social-media preview called it embarrassing. The stamps were set to be released in June of 2019 in a “Best of British” collection to mark the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. The Royal Mail apologized via Twitter, reassuring customers that the stamp design would not be printed.
We sincerely apologise that our 2019 Special Stamp preview included a design which had been incorrectly associated with the D-Day landings.
This stamp design has not been printed. We would like to reassure our customers that this image will not be part of the final set.
