I read the book by Stephen King called “Hearts In Atlantis.” There is a part in it that attempts to explain the Peace Sign.
The book is about the 1960s, which I well remember. One character was a young man who was a freshman in college. He was very much establishment and a member of the ROTC, Reserve Officer Training Corps. He said his ROTC instructor taught that the sign was invented by the Communist Party shortly after World War II. The instructor called it a Broken Cross and claimed it meant “victory through infiltration.” That is simply not true. The instructor in the book was thinking of the swastika and Hitler.
Another young man in this character’s dorm revealed the truth about the Peace Sign. I verified this truth from my research. The Peace Sign is actually a combination of two British Navy semaphore letters (where different ways of holding flags indicates different letters of the alphabet, to send signals over distance at sea).
The first letter is “N” and the second letter is “D.” When superimposed the letters make the Peace Sign. They stand for “nuclear disarmament.” Well-known British designer Gerald Holtom designed the symbol in 1958 and called it a “peace sign.” British kids were wearing it in 1961 when they marched to protest U. S. nuclear submarines operating out of ports in the British Isles.
It was first used in America by the mid-‘60s, and by 1969, it was famous.
It was often associated with the use of the “V” made with the index and middle fingers of the hand, with the palm outward facing.
The Allies of World War II first used the “V for Victory” sign and Winston Churchill was one of the first people to display it in 1941.
During the Vietnam War, in the 1960s, the “V” sign was widely adopted by the counterculture as a symbol of peace and it is still used today worldwide as the “peace sign.”
The book brought back old memories and I found this information interesting.
.png)
