On 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.