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Thursday, January 26, 2017

United Kingdom: Captain AC Green's Battle of Jutland commemorative medal

Last Thursday I got three postcards from the United Kingdom.

One of them is a stamp card of 2016's World War I Centenary issue. It shows Captain AC Green's Battle of Jutland commemorative medal, one of many unofficial medals struck to commemorate the battle. 

The Battle of Jutland was fought between the 31st May and 1st June 1916 near the coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula. It was the largest naval battle and the only major encounter between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during World War I. It formed a part of a larger German strategy to break the British blockade against Germany and to allow German naval vessels to access the Atlantic. Fourteen British and eleven German ships were sunk with a great loss of life. But although more ships and sailors were lost on British side, they were able to prevent the German plans. In German it is known as Skagerrakschlacht (Battle of Skagerrak).


With a great related stamp:
Queen's Head
World War I Centenary (from set of six) (issued 21-06-2016)
Vera Brittain was born in 1893 in Staffordshire. At the beginning of World War I her younger brother Edward applied for a commission and in 1915 Vera trained as a nurse. In June 1918 she wrote To My Brother, a poem about Edward’s bravery in the Battle of the Somme two years before. Four days later Edward was killed and Vera was devastated by his death. She died in 1970.
with a special World War I postmark


Thank You very much Kwanjira!

_________________________________________________________________________________

To My Brother

Your battle-wounds are scars upon my heart
Received when in that grand and tragic 'show' 
You played your part, 
Two years ago, 

And silver in the summer morning sun 
I see the symbol of your courage glow -- 
That Cross you won 
Two years ago. 

Though now again you watch the shrapnel fly, 
And hear the guns that daily louder grow, 
As in July 
Two years ago. 

May you endure to lead the Last Advance 
And with your men pursue the flying foe 
As once in France 
Two years ago.

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