Tank Museum launches new UK 1st Class stamp

Former Soldier Stamps A Mark On History

News Release issued: 20th September 2007

The Tank Museum hosted the launch of a new first class stamp that it helped design.
The new first class stamp, featuring a troop leader of 5th RTR in 1944, has been produced as part of a series commemorating the history of British Army Uniforms.

Tank Museum spokesman Nik Wyness said; “The artist used The Tank Museum to help accurately portray a Second World War tank crewman, and we were happy to verify the accuracy of both image and text for the accompanying literature.

"The Tank Museum, as the Museum of the Royal Armoured Corps, is delighted to see that a Royal Armoured Corps Regiment is represented in this interesting new series,”
he said.

To launch the stamps, Assistant Librarian Stuart Wheeler modelled the uniform on which the stamp was based and Major General Roy Dixon, who was a troop leader when he landed with 5th RTR on D-Day, was on hand to verify the work.

He said; “I’m impressed with the accuracy – its very close to what I was wearing in Normandy.”
He told how as a 19 year old troop leader he was awarded the Military Cross during his first week fighting in Normandy.
“We landed with Cromwell’s. We had a firefly in each troop because the main gun on a Cromwell was almost useless against armour. It was quite frustrating to watch our rounds just bouncing off the German tanks. That day we came up against a troop of Mark IV’s. I was blown out of two tanks, and by the end of the engagement there were just five of us left who managed to escape on foot. Most of the others had been taken prisoner.
" I was lucky”, he said. "I served from Normandy to the very end and I was never wounded. But there were so many times when you came so close. On one occasion in Normandy I was sat out of the turret when the Germans sent over an air burst shell. I heard moaning coming from inside the tank, looked down and the gunner, who sits below the commanders seat, had been hit in the back. He was killed. A piece of shrapnel had shot between my legs through the hatch and missed me by a fraction of an inch.”

ENDS

Photos show Major General Roy Dixon holding the new stamp
as Stuart Wheeler models the uniform he would have worn in 1944.

Hi Quality image: Right hand click on the above pictures and click 'save target as' - left hand click will open photo in new window

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