World War II
A series of limericks was used to great effect in World War II to obtain priority in a dockyard to have new guns fitted to the Dutch sloop Soemba.
The first was:
- A report has come in from the Soemba
- that their salvoes go off like a Rhumba
- two guns, they sound fine
- but the third five point nine
- he am bust and refuse to go boomba.
- by Captain Nicholl (Royal Navy)
The series continued up to a final limerick by the vice-chief of staff of the Royal Dutch navy.
Read more about this topic: Limerick (poetry)
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“Leadership in today’s world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“The war was won on both sides: by the Vietnamese on the ground, by the Americans in the electronic mental space. And if the one side won an ideological and political victory, the other made Apocalypse Now and that has gone right around the world.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)