{"id":4488,"date":"2013-07-18T17:24:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T23:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=4488"},"modified":"2013-07-18T17:24:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T23:24:01","slug":"this-week-in-the-war-14-20-july-1941-v-for-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=4488","title":{"rendered":"This week in the War, 14–20 July 1941: V for Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week in the war, at midnight on 19 July 1941, the mobilization of the V Army<\/em> was announced on the BBC by ‘Colonel Britton’.<\/p>\n

\"Churchill<\/a>

Churchill [Public domain, IWM, wiki]<\/p><\/div>In reality, Colonel Britton was Douglas Ritchie, later to become the European broadcasting director for the BBC. The V-for-Victory campaign was his brainchild—demonstrating that resistance to the Nazi invaders was still alive, be it only through such simple acts as a child chalking a ‘V’ (for Victory, or Victoire<\/em> in French) \u00a0on a playground wall.<\/p>\n

Churchill embraced the V-for-Victory campaign and frequently delighted photographers by spreading his second and third fingers to make the famous sign. Colonel Britton’s ‘V-broadcasts’ had been going on for months, each one preceded by\u00a0the opening bar of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the musical equivalent of the dot-dot-dot-dash of the Morse code for the letter V.<\/p>\n

\"Churchill<\/a>

Churchill at the Second Quebec Conference. Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King is on the right [Public domain, wiki]<\/p><\/div>Britton’s message was simple. He told his audience—his V Army—that the war was not yet over, that the least among them could make a contribution, and that together they would win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week in the war, at midnight on 19 July 1941, the mobilization of the V Army was announced on the BBC by ‘Colonel Britton’. In reality, Colonel Britton was Douglas Ritchie, later to become the European broadcasting director for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,518,519,516,517],"class_list":["post-4488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-war-ii","tag-churchill","tag-colonel-britton","tag-douglas-ritchie","tag-v-army","tag-v-for-victory-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4488"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4521,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions\/4521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}