Maltapost's new set depicts island's naval history

Maltapost will release a set of five stamps on Friday which, for the first time, depict naval connections in the island's rich maritime history, covering a period of 470 years, from the carrack of the Order of St John of 1530 to the guided missiles cruisers of the American and Soviet navies of the 1980s.

The 8c stamp shows the old painting of the giant carrack Sant Anna at the time the Order of St John arrived on the island in 1530, on view at the Sanctuary Museum at Zabbar. This very large ship was built in the south of France for the Knights and was engaged in encounters with the Turks, even if her size made her a slow, albeit invincible, warship in battle. In the end she became somewhat of a burden and was left to rot in Grand Harbour, where it is reported she was eventually destroyed by fire.

The 29c stamp records a very dramatic moment in the uprising of the Maltese against Napoleon's forces and the British sea blockade of the French troops in Valletta. The Guillaume Tell, which had escaped from the Battle of the Nile and sought refuge in Valletta, was caught and captured by a Royal Naval squadron off the island in 1800 when she tried to escape to France, as depicted in this painting by  marine artist Edwin Galea. She was repaired and renamed HMS Malta.

The 51c stamp reproduces one of the finest paintings of the Grand Harbour, which shows "Old Ironsides", the USS Constitution, dressed overall in celebration of George Washington's birthday in 1837. The painting by J.G. Evans hangs at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. The warship was commissioned in 1797 and is still on active service with the United States Navy.

The 76c stamp is of HMS Dreadnought, the first all-big-gun battleship, which revolutionised warship design and construction when launched a century ago this year. In 1900 the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral Jacky Fisher, made sketches with the chief constructor at Malta Dockyard of his concept for a powerful new battleship; the designs were later developed into the most powerful warship afloat. Dreadnought is seen leaving Grand Harbour during her short stay in Malta in 1913 in a photograph from the archives of Richard Ellis.

The Lm1 stamp recalls a historic moment when American guided missiles frigate USS Belknap and the Soviet guided missile cruiser Slava were in Malta for the meeting between US President George H.W. Bush and President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, which saw the end of the Cold War.

Belknap retired from service in 1993. Slava has since been renamed Moskva and is the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. As such, she revisited Malta in September 2004. The photographs are from the Wickman Maritime Collection.

This set, designed by Frank Ancilleri, on the advice of the Stamp Design Advisory Board, is bound to be highly popular with philatelists worldwide and is likely to be the forerunner of other similar sets recording naval history.