A Bible credited with saving the life of a World War I soldier is featured on a new stamp in the UK.
The stamp, one of six in a Royal Mail set marking the centenary of the war, depicts a small Bible that was carried by Private Lemuel Thomas Rees at the Battle of Passchendaele. When a German shell exploded nearby, Rees was struck by shrapnel but the Bible, which was in his breast pocket, is credited with preventing his wounds from being fatal.
Rees, who was conscripted into the 6th Battalion, South Wales Borderers, in 1917, subsequently spent four months in a field hospital and then on leave before returning to the Western Front when he was wounded in a gas attack, dying from bronchial pneumonia and the effects of the gas on 13th November, 1919, just two days after the Armistice was signed.
The Royal Mail said the Bible was specially photographed for the stamp. Other stamps in the series – the fourth issued in the UK to mark the centenary of World War I – feature a shattered poppy, nurses Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm, an extract from British painter and poet Isaac Rosenberg’s poem Dead Man’s Dump, a warship in dry dock, and Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium.
Philip Parker, of the Royal Mail, said the Royal Mail was “proud to present the fourth part of our commemorative programme marking the contribution and sacrifice of those who took part”.
The stamps went on sale on 31st July, the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele.
