"V" FOR VICTORY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 170, 21 July 1941, Page 5

"V" FOR VICTORY

SHOP AND CAR SIGNS

IDEA FROM OVERSEAS

(0.C.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day,

The idea of a victory demonstration and a slogan expressing a popular belief in victory, about which much has been heard from England and from some of the enemy-occupied countries, has caught the imagination of people in New j Plymouth and' shows signs of spreading rapidly.

On some shop windows and on motor cars in the town there has appeared a large letter "V" and three dots and a dash alongside it and the psychological -effect was quickly seen when other business houses and motor cars followed suit and put up the significant sign.

The "V" is intended to mean vie-! Tory and the three dots and a dash represent the morse signal for the same letter. By this means the idea of victory is kept vividly before the eyes and the minds of people and may counteract any tendency to a spirit of defeatism.

It has been said that the chalking up of the letter V and the dots and dashes by persons in some of the enemy-occupied countries, has had a disturbing effect upon the Nazis and the little device can be put on a door or building so quickly and silently I that the detection of those who do lit is very difficult.

Another aspect of this "Victory complex" has been the playing o singing or whistling of the openii notes of Beethoven's C minor syn. phony (No. 5), which consists of fou notes—three short ones and then long one—which may also be inter preted as the "V" signal.

The Mayor of New Plymouth, Mr. E. R. C. Gilmour, said he supported the idea and believed it wouK definitely help in maintaining pubh morale and express the general be lief in victory and the defeat c Hitler ism.