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Royal Mail is marking the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain on a souvenir sheet of six stamps that is to be issued on the 16th of July.

This miniature sheet commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, which was fought in the skies over southern England from July to late October 1940 and was a key turning point of the Second World War. The six stamps feature photographic imagery from this period, showing some of the many aspects of the battle and the people involved, including pilots, ground crew, observers and Operations Room staff. The miniature sheet border features an image of Prime Minister Winston Churchill at a coast defence position near Hartlepool on 31 July 1940, alongside his famous quotation about ‘the few’.

Fought from July 10 through Oct. 31, 1940, in the skies over Britain by the Royal Air Force and Germany’s Luftwaffe, the battle was named before it even started.

In a June 18, 1940, speech, Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, “What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. …The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. …Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour’”.

Another quote from Churchill is inscribed in the selvage on the left side of the souvenir sheet: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.

This phrase is from a speech, now referred to as “The Few”, made during the middle of the Battle of Britain, on Aug. 20, 1940.