Colonel Britton & The V Campaign

Colonel Britton was the pseudonym of Douglas Ritchie, a 36-year-old Assistant News Editor at the BBC. He expanded the V for Victory campaign in 1941 and 1942 in the occupied territories, where it was designed to subvert German rule with various methods of resistance. Since the English-language service was not tightly controlled by the Ministry of Information, the campaign flourished. Ritchie suggested an audible V using its Morse code rhythm (three dots and a dash). Having the same rhythm, the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was then used as the call-sign by the BBC in its foreign language programmes to occupied Europe for the rest of the war. The irony that they were composed by a German was not lost on many of the audience or for the more musically educated that it was "Fate knocking on the door" of the Third Reich. "You wear no uniforms and your weapons differ from ours, but they're no less deadly. The fact that you wear no uniforms is your strength. The Nazi official and the German soldier don't know you, but they fear you. The night is your friend, the 'V' is your sign..." (BBC Broadcast - 1941 June 27)