2017-08-01 Tue

A new set of postage stamps were released by the Royal Mail to observe the 100th anniversary of the battle of Passchendaele during World War I. It is the fourth set of stamps to mark each year of the war. One of the latest stamps features the Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium, where soldiers from the battle are buried. Another one features a red poppy frozen in liquid nitrogen before withering away.

Another stamp depicts a miniature Bible which saved the life of Army Private Lemuel Thomas Rees. Rees was hit by an exploding German Bomb but he was saved by the small Bible that he kept in his breast pocket. Another image shows nurses Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm who went to Belgium, joined small ambulance corps and managed a first aid post, 100 meters from the battleground.

Lines from a poem written by British painter and poet Isaac Rosenberg reads "Dead Man's Dump" on one of the stamps. A warship with its hull painted in a geometric abstract style is shown on another stamp. Painter Edward Wadsworth created "dazzle camouflage" patterns for British ships to confuse attacking German U-boats.