The V Campaign

The BBC engaged in overt propaganda with its extraordinarily successful V-For-Victory campaign. The Belgian Service started it, exhorting listeners to adopt the V-sign as a rallying emblem. Soon the whole of the European Service had joined in, and with them audiences across the Continent. Placards and posters and chalked Vs appeared everywhere. The morse code for V – three dots and a dash – was replicated by the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It soon became the European Service's call sign and interval sign. Across Occupied Europe people hummed and whistled the tune, and in Britain the V made its way onto badges and other items. Prime Minister Churchill made the sign his trademark.

At first the Nazis were enraged by the campaign but, in the end, recognising that they couldn't win, they adopted it as their own, putting a V on the Eiffel Tower, and renaming one of Prague's main thoroughfares Victoria Street.

BBC - The BBC Story - The BBC at War

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