#doodlebug
Jules Adolphe Breton (1827-1906) - Jeune paysanne jouant avec des hannetons
Oil on canvas. Painted in 1857.
22 x 18.25 inches, 56 x 46.5 cm. Estimate: £40,000-60,000.
Failed to sell Bonhams, London, 30 March 2022.
She is depicted holding a stick with cockchafer beetles on it. Growing to around 3 cm and found throughout Europe, the beetles have distinctive fan-shaped antennae. Before the advent of modern pesticides, they were a major problem for agricultural crops. The two species found in the UK are known by various local names including billy witch, mitchamador, spang beetle, May bug (around the time of year when they emerge), and doodlebug. Adults live for around four to five weeks.
The whirring of the beetles’ wings in flight gave rise to ‘doodlebug’ being used as the nickname for Germany’s WWII V-1 flying bomb due to the sound of the engine propelling it.
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Nr.123 The German V1 flying bomb aka Buzz bomb or doodlebug.
TheV-1 flying bomb(German:Vergeltungswaffe1 “Vengeance Weapon 1” was an early cruise missile and the only production aircraft to use a pulsejet for power.
Its official RLM aircraft designation was Fi 103. It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bombordoodlebug and in Germany as Kirschkern(cherrystone)[c]orMaikäfer(maybug).[d]
The V-1 was the first of the so-called “Vengeance weapons” series (V-weaponsorVergeltungswaffen) deployed for the terror bombing of London. It was developed at Peenemünde Army Research Center in 1939 by the Nazi GermanLuftwaffe at the beginning of the Second World War, and during initial development was known by the codename “Cherry Stone”. Because of its limited range, the thousands of V-1 missiles launched into England were fired from launch facilities along the French (Pas-de-Calais) and Dutch coasts.
The Wehrmacht first launched the V-1s against London on 13 June 1944, one week after (and prompted by) the successful Allied landings in France. At peak, more than one hundred V-1s a day were fired at southeast England, 9,521 in total, decreasing in number as sites were overrun until October 1944, when the last V-1 site in range of Britain was overrun by Allied forces. After this, the Germans directed V-1s at the port of Antwerp and at other targets in Belgium, launching a further 2,448 V-1s. The attacks stopped only a month before the war in Europe ended, when the last launch site in the Low Countries was overrun on 29 March 1945.
