About This Stamp
The Postal Service commemorated the 50th anniversary of World War II with the issuance of a miniature sheet of 10 29-cent stamps, on June 6, 1994, on the USS Normandy. The 1944: Road to Victory miniature sheet was the fourth in a series of five issues through 1995 commemorating major events of World War II.
Also on June 6, a ceremony was held at the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., where the miniature sheets as well as the USS Normandy First Day of Issue cancellation were available.
The stamps highlight the following 1944 events and subjects: Allied forces retake New Guinea; P-51s escort B-17s on bombing raids; Allies in Normandy, D-Day, June 6; airborne units spearhead attacks; submarines shorten war in Pacific; Allies free Rome, June 4, and Paris, August 25; U.S. troops clear Saipan bunkers; Red Ball Express speeds vital supplies; Battles for Leyte Gulf, October 23-26; and Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge, December. The sheet design remained consistent with the previous three issues with the central label portraying a world map that illustrates the extent of Axis control and Allied operations.
In addition to a commemorative sheet, the Postal Service offered the fourth of five golden anniversary stamp collections. The year's release was entitled 1944: Road to Victory and featured a 40-page hardcover book that included an overview of the history of the events and subjects depicted on the stamps, two 1944 commemorative stamp sheets, and special mounts for positioning one sheet and individual stamps on key pages.
Designed by William H. Bond, the stamps were printed in the offset/intaglio process by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
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.