Dam Busters 75th anniversary featured on new stamps from Jersey Post

A landmark anniversary of Operation Chastise, known to history as the raid of the Dam Busters, is to be marked with six new stamps issued by Jersey Post on 16 May 2018.

The raid of the Dam Busters

Operation Chastise, which took place on 16-17 May 1943, was a World War Two mission in which nineteen specially adapted Avro Lancaster bombers left the UK on a mission to breach three dams deep within the heart of Germany's Ruhr valley.

The mission required some of the RAF's most skilled airmen, selected for the specially formed 617 squadron and trained in under ten weeks, to fly at low altitude at night across the sea and at treetop height across hundreds of miles of heavily defended enemy territory to deliver a weapon that had never been tried operationally.

The ‘bouncing bomb’ raid was one of the best-known UK aerial victories of the Second World War, and inspired the 1955 film The Dam Busters, starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd.

The six new stamps feature scenes from the raid, as well as images of the crew members at work.

Stamp details

Dam Busters Anniversary

Issue date: 16 May 2018

Design: Interabang

Print process: Offset lithography

Stamp size: 30mm x 40mm

(image copyright Jersey Post)