The £2 stamp has set a record for ‘Most words on a postage stamp’ with a total of 2,183 legible words!
For over 300 years Gibraltar has been a British overseas territory of military importance. During the Second World War there was a fear that if Nazi Germany and its allies took Gibraltar and the strait, there would have been catastrophic consequences.
Churchill himself described ‘Operation Torch’, the attack on French North Africa, as the ‘Hinge of Fate’. And to accommodate the influx of military personnel required to reinforce the Rock, it was decided that 16,000 civilians who were not deemed essential to its defence, should be evacuated.
May 2014 marks the beginning of the 75th anniversary of this mass-migration. Within a matter of weeks over 70% of the total population of Gibraltar was evacuated to French Morocco. Gibraltar’s women, children, elderly and infirm, were torn apart from husbands, fathers, and sons in a time of intense danger. They accepted that hardship with immense courage and as an act of duty and loyalty to Britain.
The story of Gibraltar’s evacuation is one of the few untold stories of the Second World War. This commemorative stamp issue serves to remember the hardships endured by so many Gibraltarians in this time of conflict and we hope it will encourage you to celebrate the ‘Evacuation Generation’, while we still can. To find out more, please visit www.gibraltar75years.com
