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VE Day

Discussion in 'General Chit Chat' started by Mattecube, May 8, 2020.

  1. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    I remember Churchill's funeral too, Jim.
    An early memory.
  2. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    Not really,I always wanted a genuine shuar tsantsa after that,even to this day,but the £15,000 price tag is off-putting :ninja:
  3. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    I worked near Sorong, in Irian Jaya (now Western New Guinea) in the 70's and people back then said there were headhunters there.
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  4. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    There were,I have seen skulls in longhouses hanging in the roofs,old soot blackened ones purportedly Japanese on Borneo.
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  5. John Stevens
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    John Stevens Active Member

    Victor de Laveleye was the first to use it in WW2 Churchill adopted it(who later found out he had it round the wrong way)as did some resistance organisations in Europe.

    The long bow archers is a almost surly a urban legend as the v sign as an insult did not appear anywhere in British literature before the 1900"s (just like the story where the word sh#t comes from) back in the day the french would likely just slit your throat than take the time to cut your fingers off
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  6. Mattecube
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    Mattecube face the sunshine so shadows fall behind you Trusted Member

    He was a radio presenter and encouraged the use of the letter V not the hand gesture.

    January 4, 1941, Victor De Lavelaye, a Belgian refugee in Britain, made a BBC radio broadcast to his countrymen, in which he suggested a new way of striking at their Nazi occupiers:




    I am proposing to you as a rallying emblem the letter V, because V is the first letter of the words 'Victoire' in French, and 'Vrijheid' in Flemish: two things which go together, as Walloons and Flemings are at the moment marching hand in hand, two things which are the consequence one of the other, the Victory which will give us back our freedom, the Victory of our good friends the English. Their word for Victory also begins with V.



    Could De Lavelaye have got this idea from his own first name?



    Beethoven's Fifth
    De Lavelaye's campaign was taken up by the BBC, which began to broadcast the morse code for V (dot-dot-dot-dash), followed by the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, whose notes correspond to the morse signal; "fifth" can also be written using the Roman numeral, V. These four notes would have an added significance for educated Germans, for Beethoven supposedly said that they represented the sound of "fate knocking on the door".

    People in Nazi-occupied territories were told to chalk Vs on walls, and to make the V signal whenever possible. Teachers could call children to order by clapping the signal, and train drivers could make it using their whistles. Every time someone knocked on a door or rang a church bell, they should use the rhythm of Victory.

    The campaign was planned to undermine German morale in the occupied territories. De Lavelaye explained, "The occupier, by seeing this sign, always the same, infinitely repeated, will understand that he is surrounded, encircled by an immense crowd of citizens eagerly awaiting his first moment of weakness, watching for his first failure."


    Such was the success of the campaign that the Germans tried to counter it with their own "V for Viktoria" project. They were too late, for the letter V was now understood across Europe as an anti-Nazi sign.



    The Churchillian gesture
    Winston Churchill took up the Victory campaign enthusiastically, and made a V sign with his fingers whenever a camera was pointed at him, his palm facing in both directions. This dismayed his private secretary, John Colville. In September 1941, Colville wrote in his diary, ''The PM will give the V-sign with two fingers in spite of representations repeatedly made to him that this gesture has quite another significance.''


    Churchill was eventually persuaded to use only the palm forwards gesture.



    Around the world
    The V for Victory gesture is now understood and used worldwide. Following the first free elections in Iraq, in January 2005, Iraqi women leaving the polling stations were photographed making the sign triumphantly. The gesture is also made by Palestinians and Israelis, by American GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan and by those they fight against.


    The Victory gesture can be made with palms facing in either direction, though the palm forwards sign is more common - perhaps due to the influence of Winston Churchill.



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  7. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I'm sorry I made any reply at all that has led to this expansion of this particular sub-topic side-note in history, I was just interested in the photos and how they brought back the feeling of that time the way the world felt when I was a very small child just a decade and a half later.

    My childhood and that of many was heavily affected by the fallout of the war, it was still very close to surface of peoples minds in those days and while it will eventually one day become just something in the history books we who were close to that time should never forget and should keep the commemorations going.
  8. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    I worked in the Sarong area in the late 90’s. I believe cannibals and headhunters were common in the region. I saw bows and arrows and there were reports of poison darts and blow guns. There had been reports of cannibalism in the years before I visited.
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  9. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    I was 21 or 22 yo when I was there. What fun :lol:
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  10. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    Never heard of curare tipped darts in Asia John,the arrow frog is South American,a different sort of poison maybe?
  11. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Strychnine is one it would appear.
    from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_poison
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  12. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I envy you guys who had lives like that, that far back in time.
  13. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    When we were there it seemed to be well known that poisonous darts were used from blow guns. Seemingly those that were adept enough could force these projectiles over some distance. There was a good trade in replica blow guns :D Many folk at the rig site would quake in their boots at times when wandering around the drill rig site.

    55FEC70B-1298-4EBD-BF84-80D8CF2FF4BD.jpeg
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  14. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    I have a blowgun,new model however,cold steel big bore blowgun,Tim wells used the same model on bear and even a baboon in Africa,I wouldn't like to be shot with it,you need pliers to get the dart out of an oak door :ninja:
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  15. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    Suffice to say my childhood was also very heavily affected by the fallout of the 2nd World War. My mother and her sister were evacuated to the country, from the East End of London and stayed with another family. This led to some horrendous issues for her, the details of which I will spare, but the knock on effect from this was considerable.

    To my daughter and wife WW2 in Europe will be something in the history books only but for me it was almost within touching distance. Having said that, they both will see Covid 19 in a more direct light :D
  16. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    I think you need the lungs for it. :D
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  17. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    I was a bit older than that when I was there. I put the head hunter and poisoned dart thing to the back of my mind and kept my trips to the site perimeter to a minimum. I was also a bit wary of what they called the Cassowary bird (like an ostrich but with knife like blades as claws) that can chop yer head off too and apparently is the worlds most dangerous bird. Seemingly they were not shy at coming forward and didn’t hide. I didn’t regard it as fun and kept my head down for 6 weeks then flew home and never returned. It was British Gas that was drilling out there.

    Another bit of useless info is that the Cassowary bird is indigenous to Australia and Papua New Guinea where West Papua and PNG are the only countries other than Australia to have marsupials indigenously. And pretty much relates to Australia and PNG being part of the same continental plate.

    How did we get from VE Day to blow guns?
    Last edited: May 13, 2020
  18. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    Cassowary have been known to kill people and dogs,I think they can disembowel with their kicks :ninja:
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  19. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    On that job near Sorong, Jim, I was looking after radio navigation stations that were on offshore islands that were only accessible by chopper which were flown by Americans who were recently out of Vietnam. One day the pilot I was with showed me how he used to do bombing runs in the chopper. It was very exciting tipping the nose down and falling out of the sky heading for a small island but he told me not to tell anyone at the Philips base camp as he would get into trouble. He also took me to some islands that were not on our designated flight path as long as I kept schtum when we returned. It was the first time I had come into contact with American chopper pilots and I thought they were very adventurous and lived life on the edge.
  20. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    The next job after the job I was on (mainland) was to be on an island off the coast there. I actually enthused about such a job but local people were used instead.

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