Royal Mail criticised for D-Day stamp mix-up

Royal Mail has withdrawn a stamp design marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day – after BBC News pointed out it showed US troops landing in what was Dutch New Guinea, nearly 8,500 miles from France.

The stamp was due to be released next year in a “Best of British” collection.

Captioned “Allied soldiers and medics wade ashore”, it was said to depict the Normandy landings but was actually taken in what is modern-day Indonesia.

People who saw the error in a social media preview called it “embarrassing”.

The image appears on the American National WWII Museum website, attributed to the US Coast Guard, and is said to show troops carrying stretchers from a landing craft at Sarmi, Dutch New Guinea on 17 May 1944.

The D-Day landings did not take place until 6 June that year, when British, US and Canadian forces landed on the beaches of northern France.

The landings were the first stage of Operation Overlord – the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe – and were intended to end World War Two.