V for Victory – the Received Version
Crowley was not indifferent to the war’s misery. Eager to devise a tonic for the country, he hit on the idea of the V-sign. Perhaps we should not be surprised that the official record regarding the V-sign does not give Crowley credit for what the 1995 HMSO publication (Persuading the People – Government Publicity in the Second World War, p.33) described as “one of the BBC’s most enduring contributions to the propaganda war.”
Nobody attacked Crowley’s claim.
According to the official account (ibid.), the V-sign’s use followed “on the suggestion of a Belgian commentator” because it combined the first letter of Victoire (Victory in French) and Vrijheid (Freedom in Flemish). “The campaign began in January 1941, with a broadcast for Belgium, and spread throughout Europe, resisters painting the V on public buildings.” The Belgian Victor Auguste de Laveleye (1894-1945), Liberal Member of Parliament for Brussels, was a member of the team producing Belgian French-speaking broadcasts on the BBC (1940-1944).
However, it was not until May 1941 that a paper on “broadcasting as a new weapon of war” was circulated within the BBC. Encouraged by de Lavalaye’s shortwave appeal to occupied Europe, the paper aimed to co-ordinate radio propaganda to foment resistance abroad. South Afri-can journalist Douglas Ernest Ritchie (1905-1967) became Assistant Director BBC European Broadcasts in 1941 and organised the BBC’s V-Campaign, broadcasting as ‘Colonel Britton’. On 20 July 1941 he asked Parisians to stage a “quiet knocking” demonstration of the famous Beethoven Fifth Symphony “da-da-da-daah”: Morse code for ‘V’. Churchill joined the campaign with a radio message: “The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the people of the occupied territories and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny.” Churchill took to the V-sign with enthusi-asm (it became, of course, a personal trademark), putting his fingers up to the enemy. He was hard to persuade that when performed knuckles out the sign had a vulgar meaning among the lower classes. Occasionally he would make the V palm-forwards, but he undoubtedly understood and liked the double meaning, as did many of those who saw it and imi-tated it. For Churchill, it was undoubtedly a symbol of the indomitable will, as it was for Crowley: phallic, vital power, confident of victory. Its effect was magical; was its source?
Nobody attacked Crowley’s claim.
According to the official account (ibid.), the V-sign’s use followed “on the suggestion of a Belgian commentator” because it combined the first letter of Victoire (Victory in French) and Vrijheid (Freedom in Flemish). “The campaign began in January 1941, with a broadcast for Belgium, and spread throughout Europe, resisters painting the V on public buildings.” The Belgian Victor Auguste de Laveleye (1894-1945), Liberal Member of Parliament for Brussels, was a member of the team producing Belgian French-speaking broadcasts on the BBC (1940-1944).
However, it was not until May 1941 that a paper on “broadcasting as a new weapon of war” was circulated within the BBC. Encouraged by de Lavalaye’s shortwave appeal to occupied Europe, the paper aimed to co-ordinate radio propaganda to foment resistance abroad. South Afri-can journalist Douglas Ernest Ritchie (1905-1967) became Assistant Director BBC European Broadcasts in 1941 and organised the BBC’s V-Campaign, broadcasting as ‘Colonel Britton’. On 20 July 1941 he asked Parisians to stage a “quiet knocking” demonstration of the famous Beethoven Fifth Symphony “da-da-da-daah”: Morse code for ‘V’. Churchill joined the campaign with a radio message: “The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the people of the occupied territories and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny.” Churchill took to the V-sign with enthusi-asm (it became, of course, a personal trademark), putting his fingers up to the enemy. He was hard to persuade that when performed knuckles out the sign had a vulgar meaning among the lower classes. Occasionally he would make the V palm-forwards, but he undoubtedly understood and liked the double meaning, as did many of those who saw it and imi-tated it. For Churchill, it was undoubtedly a symbol of the indomitable will, as it was for Crowley: phallic, vital power, confident of victory. Its effect was magical; was its source?
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