V TRIUMPHS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 October 1941, Page 6

V TRIUMPHS

SURRENDER BY GERMANS.

SIGNS USED EVERYWHERE IN FRANCE. The V has triumphed. Unable to bring about the disappearance of the hundreds of thousands of V’s, the victory sign, the sign of hope of the oppressed, Dr. Goebbels has had to toe the line and pretend the sign is his. This latest manoeuvre is typical of of a people who have invented very little but who through history have always been the copiers of others. To take only the present war: the tank which brought so much success in the early days of the war is a British invention, first used by us. The combination of aeroplane and tank is not a German invention. The composition of the mechanised column and the liaison with aeroplane Units is a slavish copy of the work written by General de Gaulle. In that book, written some years ago, the French General set out the blue prints which the Germans copied. And now the Germans have had to surrender to the V.

The V’s were seen everywhere. They were chalked, pencilled, and painted all over France on every available space. Bands of youths at night painted large V’s on the trees along the 'countryside. Even cattle wandered about the fields bearing the annoying letter V. The V was scratched on German motor cars.

In Paris, German soldiers getting out of the underground railway carriages in the rush hours were sure to find that someone had chalked a V on their back, and often their uniforms were cut by a V slashed with a razor blade.

The Midinettes wore feathers in their hats that, quite accidentally, formed the letter V. And when warm weather came their corsages were opened in a very obvious V. Peasants and townspeople cheered R.A.F. planes flying in V formation. Written on walls, rapped out in Morse code, whistled, played on instruments, rung on door-bells where Germans are quartered, the V that became as great a nuisance to the Germans as it became a sign of hope to the oppressed has now been taken over by the imitating Germans.

But Dr. Goebbels had to manufacture a word, “Viktoria,” which is not German.

There is, however, a German word for which in the eyes of all German, war-weary soldiers the V will inevitably stand. That word is Vcrloren—lost.