Feature: Britain's female solider in WWI remembered in new stamp collection

She was the only British woman to bear arms during World War One in a deadly conflict involving hundreds of thousands of male combatants.

Reaching the rank of captain in the Serbian army, Flora Sandes remained in Belgrade after WWI and volunteered to fight the Nazis during the attack on Yugoslavia in April 1941.

On Tuesday, the Serbian army paid its own tribute to their heroine. Sandes was decorated with the highest Serbian military medal for her contribution in combat.

The daughter of an Irish clergyman, Sanders was born in the northern England county of Yorkshire, and as a child would say she wished she had been born a boy.

In 1914, at the start of the war, she applied to become a nurse, but was rejected, so instead she joined an ambulance unit and left England for Serbia.

Later she enrolled as a solider. During one Serbian advance, she was seriously wounded by a grenade. That earned her the highest decoration of the Serbian army and promotion to the rank of sergeant major.

Decommissioned from the army in 1922, Sanders got married and after living for a while in France returned to Belgrade where she became a taxi driver. She died in England in 1956.

Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London announced details of a new collection of postage stamps issued today in Serbia, featuring Sanders and five other women involved in war efforts in Serbia.

The six stamps were released after the British Embassy in Serbia partnered up with the Serbia Post to commemorate British heroines of WWI.

Sanders was among more than 600 British women who served in Serbia as doctors, nurses and drivers, but she was the only one to fight as a frontline soldier in the Serbian Army.

Other heroines featuring in the stamps launched Tuesday are Evelina Haverfield, Dr Elsie Inglis, Dr Elizabeth Ross, Dr Katherine MacPhail and Dr Elmslie Hutton. Endit