Radio Londres

Radio Londres also encouraged rising up against the occupation, including De Gaulle's calls to empty the streets of Paris for one hour, demonstrations, and the preparation of D-Day, or the V for Victory campaign, involving drawing a V sign on walls as an act of subversion.

Representative messages include "Jean has a long moustache" and "There is a fire at the insurance agency", each one having some meaning to a certain resistance group.

Although in some places the Axis jamming was more effective than others, the background noise and static were not enough to drown out the sound of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, the first four notes of which correspond to the  ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄  of the Morse code letter V for Victory.

Shortly before the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944, Radio Londres broadcast the first stanza of Paul Verlaine's poem "Chanson d'automne" to let the resistance know that the invasion was imminent.

The first part of the stanza, Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne ("the long sobs of the violins of autumn") indicated that the invasion would begin within 24 hours; the second, Blessent mon cœur d'une langueur monotone ("wound my heart with a monotonous languor") was the specific call to action.

Commemorative plaque of Radio Londres in the cemetery of Asnelles , Calvados
Charles de Gaulle (pictured) made several broadcasts on Radio Londres during the war