About This Stamp
The Postal Service issued its second commemorative sheet of 10 29-cent stamps, marking the 50th anniversary of World War II, August 17, 1992, in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW) national convention. This was the second in a series of five to be issued annually from 1991 through 1995.
Each full pane of 20 stamps yields two identical miniature sheets when torn along the perforations dividing them. Each miniature sheet features 10 individual commemorative stamps that recall a series of key events from America's second year into the war. The stamps are positioned horizontally in two rows of five, one above and below a Mercator-projection world map entitled "1942: Into the Battle." The map has text, arrows, and color shadings to depict theaters of war and historical events of 1942.
The stamp designs recalling war scenes of 1942 include B-25's take-off to raid Tokyo on April 18; ration coupons; dive bomber and deck crewman during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May; prisoners of war at the fall of Corregidor on May 6; Dutch Harbor buildings on fire in June, when Japan invaded Aleutian Islands; headphones and coded message symbolizing Allies' deciphering secret enemy codes; Yorktown lost and the victory at Midway; woman with drill commemorating the millions of women who joined war effort; marines landing on Guadalcanal on August 7; and Allies landing in North Africa in November.
William H. Bond of Arlington, Virginia, designed the stamps, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing printed the stamps in the offset/intaglio process.
Stamp Art Director
Howard E. Paine
A member of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee before being named an art director in 1981, Howard E. Paine supervised the design of more than 400 U.S. postage stamps. After three decades as an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, he retired in 2011.
For more than 30 years Paine was an art director for the National Geographic Society, where he redesigned National Geographic magazine, developed the children’s magazine, National Geographic World, and designed Explorers Hall. A popular lecturer, he has spoken at Yale University and New York University, among others, and presented programs for the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. A judge for numerous art shows and design competitions, Paine also taught magazine design at The George Washington University.
Paine had been a stamp collector since childhood. In 2000, he designed the catalog for Pushing The Envelope: The Art of the Postage Stamp, an exhibit of original stamp art at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Howard Paine died on September 13, 2014.