The Billiken's Bluff

My overseas correspondent visited the War Cabinet Museum in London. The Museum showcases the space where Winston Churchill and his cabinet ran operations while Germany bombed the city of London during WWII. Among the gems of information that she found buried in the bunkers; the British haughtily, flippantly, causally, caustically referred to the V-Bombs that Germany blitzkrieged London with as "doodlebugs". How emasculating is that?

Imagine you are a soldier in the German army in the midst of trying to wipe out England. A General asks you if London has been destroyed, if Germany has broken the will of the English people. And you report back that no London is still standing, and in fact, the British in London are referring to our Vergeltung Bombs as doodlebugs.

A little history from the BBC:

The first ten V-1s were launched on London on 12 June 1944, and six days later 121 people were killed by a direct hit on the Guard's Chapel at Wellington Barracks. At the end of the month some 100 'doodlebugs' - as Londoners called them - were being directed at the capital every day.



I have no idea really how something as menacing sounding as the V-weapon, The Vergeltung Bomb, i.e. Retribution, came to be known in London as the doodlebug. Maybe it’s something along the lines of Russel Crowe’s quote from Gladiator:

"Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."

Or refer to death as a doodlebug.