Veterans Disappointed Al Anzac Day Stamp

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30442, 16 May 1964, Page 1

Veterans Disappointed Al Anzac Day Stamp

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, May 15. Dissatisfaction by several interested bodies with the design of the Anzac Day stamp, which it is proposed to issue to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Gallipoli landing next year, has caused the Postmaster-General (Mr Scott) to conduct a full investigation into the circumstances leading up to choosing the design.

The stamp, which features a red poppy superimposed on a scene of Anzac Gove, was designed by Mr R. M. Conly, of Christchurch.

A deputation from the Gallipoli Veterans’ Association, consisting of its president (Mr J. Maidrum) and a member of the executive (Mr W. B. Fitchett) will wait on the Minister next Tuesday.

The association has already written to the secretary of the Returned Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmens’ Imperial League of Australia (Mr A. G. W. Key) drawing his attention to the design and asking him for comment. The Gallipoli veterans claim that no-one who was on the peninsula during the campaign saw the design before it was chosen, and that it was not shown to persons who might have been able to offer criticism and advice before selection.

Points of the veterans’ criticism are:

1. Whereas the object of the stamp is to commemorate the anniversary of the landing, the illustration of Anzac Cove is “too civilised” as it contains jetties and hutments which were

certainly not there on the first Anzac Day. 2. The poppy—described by the veterans as looking more like a pudding in the illustration—has no connexion with Gallipoli, but is associated with Flanders. 3. It would be much more fitting, in view of the connotations of “Anzac,” to have had a stamp of identical design issued in Australia and New Zealand, and differing only in the name of the two Dominions.

Members of the executive of the veterans’ association said tonight that the first they had seen of the stamp was when it was published in the newspapers.

They suggested that a much better memorial would be an illustration of the actual landing, showing Anzac Cove as it was on April 25, 1915. A fitting inset symbol could well be the striking international memorial standing on Chunuk Bair.

Many good photographs of

the stark realities of the Gallipoli campaign are available. There are also some fine paintings of the landing. The only actual photographs of the landing were taken by Australians, but these are available in Canberra.

Gallipoli veterans believe it would be the most fitting and the easiest course for one design to be produced for the two countries.