Britain’s Royal Mail has apologised over a commemorative stamp design for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France next year that instead showed US troops landing in what is now Indonesia.

The design was part of a series of special issues showcasing the “Best of British” and was to be released in time for the anniversary of the Allied landings on June 6, 1944.

The image, which was previewed on Thursday, was labelled “D-Day Allied soldiers and medics wade ashore”.

“We would like to offer our sincere apologies that our preview release for our 2019 Special Stamp program included a stamp design which had been incorrectly associated with the D-Day landings,” a Royal Mail spokesman said.

The image selected instead showed US troops disembarking in what was then Dutch New Guinea in May 1944.

Twitter users were quick to point out the mistake.

“Please correct this or you will look like idiots,” Paul Woodadge, a D-Day historian, wrote to Royal Mail.

Royal Mail might have never picked up on the mistake had not historians pointed out that the stamp design it planned to issue to commemorate the D-Day landings in France in fact showed US troops going ashore thousands of miles away weeks earlier.

“The stamp issue will be a timely commemoration of all those who participated and will use images from the day itself,” the Royal Mail had said before the blunder was revealed.

However, after a preview of the stamp was put on the Royal Mail’s Twitter feed, historians and others noticed the error.

Royal Mail sincerely apologised on Twitter.

While some Twitter users adopted the philosophy of “mistakes happen”, others saw something symbolic in the error.

“As all good historians know [those] who don’t remember history are bound to repeat the same mistakes … no coincidence Brexit occurred once the WW2 generation has sadly left us,” tweeted one.