As explored previously in SAR’s March online offering of selected motivational posters from WWI, it’s important to understand that so-called “propaganda” is often both necessary and essential for persuading a reluctant populace to rise above their fears and enthusiastically join the common fight.

This was particularly true in the dark early days of the United States’ entry into World War II, immediately after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7^th, 1941.

The American people were understandably demoralized by horrific images of dead and horribly wounded sailors and many of our previously magnificent warships gutted and fiercely burning from multiple hits by enemy torpedoes and bombs. Coming as the latest in a string of victories, Japan’s war machine seemed invincible in its relentless assault in the Pacific.

Across the Atlantic, the Axis forces of Germany and Italy were rampaging across Europe, quickly overcoming British, French, Polish and Russian resistance.

America’s dangerously extreme pacifism after the Great War of 1914-18 had left our military woefully unprepared in manpower and weaponry. All odds seemed against stopping the enemy’s worldwide assault on freedom.

But motivated by righteous rage and spurred on by hard-edged speeches by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Americans rallied to the fight. Men rushed to recruiting offices for all branches of the armed forces and women on the home front poured into defense industry factories, “The Arsenal of Democracy.”

The U.S. Office of War Information went into high gear with multiple means of mass persuasion toward support of a unified war effort including radio broadcasts, movie newsreels, newspaper features, and posters, the subject of this feature.

A handful of weapons related posters are offered here as representative of countless examples that inspired Americans to enlist, to fight, to produce weapons and munitions, to buy War Bonds, and do just about anything else needed for victory.

WE’LL LICK ‘EM. JUST GIVE US THE METAL. A determined American soldier holding a battle-damaged Japanese flag and a formidable M1 rifle with long, menacing bayonet assures arms factory workers that their output will result in victory. Credit: U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia

March 1944, Bougainville, Solomon Islands. Supported by a massive Sherman Tank and advancing cautiously with fearsome 16-inch blade M1905 bayonets fixed on their .30-06 caliber semiauto Garand Rifles, this squad of GIs got the metal they needed to hunt down, spear or shoot fanatical Japanese infiltrators. Credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps, National Archives

DON’T BE A DOPE. HANDLE EQUIPMENT RIGHT! Newly enlisted and hastily trained soldiers couldn’t always be counted on to exercise the best judgement in using their weapons only as intended. Here, the comic character Joe Dope figures his M1903 Springfield Rifle is just the thing for prying a boulder outta the way before digging his foxhole. But when urgently needed to repel a Japanese attack the rifle’s bent barrel will cause the rifle to blow up in his face. Credit: U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia

July 1944, France. With his hard hitting, long ranging, bolt action .30-06 caliber M1903 Springfield Rifle slung handily over one shoulder, T5 Dexter Clayton helps Master Sergeant Nelson Ewing tighten up wire. For some reason, Clayton also has a little .30 cal. M1 Carbine slung muzzle down behind his back. Credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps, National Archives

BACK HIM UP WITH MORE G-E PRODUCTION. With clenched teeth, a tough Marine pumps lead into the enemy with this .45 ACP Reising Submachine Gun. The message to factory workers at G-E (General Electric) is don’t slack off on the assembly lines. Quality + Quantity = Victory. Credit: U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia

December 1943, Bougainville, Solomon Islands. Corporal Henry Bake, Jr., (left) and Private First Class George H. Kirk, Navajo Indian “Code Talkers” serving with a USMC signal unit, operate a portable radio set in a clearing they’ve hacked in the dense jungle close behind the front lines.

Note Kirk’s Reising M55 submachine gun with 20-round magazine and distinctive folding wire stock. Credit: U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. National Archives

YOUR IDEAS ARE ON THE ATTACK. KEEP ‘EM COMING! Ideas are weapons! Weapons win wars! Mail your ideas and suggestions to your local Ordnance District Office…. Looking right at you over the sights of his .45 ACP M1928A1 Thompson Submachine gun with 50-round drum magazine, this combat soldier wants good ideas that will increase the effectiveness of his weapons and ammunition. Credit: U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia

31 July 1940, Hartlepool, England. Not an American Gangster of the “Roaring Twenties,” it’s British Prime Minister Winston Churchill handling an American “Tommy Gun” while visiting his soldiers manning costal defense positions in anticipation of a German attack across the English Channel. Before the U.S. entered the war a year later, thousands of these iconic submachine guns were supplied to Britain under the Lend Lease Program. Credit: Imperial War Museum via Wikimedia

TIME TO GO! – & BEAT OUR QUOTA! A U.S. Paratrooper leaps out of a transport plane holding on tight to his little .30 caliber M1 Carbine. Factory workers at the Inland Division of General Motors, the largest producer of carbines, were encouraged to never miss a day in the desperate rush to turn out the many tens of thousands urgently needed by American GIs. Credit: U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia  

8 March 1945, Cologne, Germany. Combat infantrymen of Company G, 415^th Infantry, 104^th Infantry Division, take a well-deserved break during a lull in fighting. Second from left is Private First Class John Thresher of East Prairie, Missouri, who has taped a couple of 15-round magazines together for quickly reloading his light, handy, semiauto M1 Carbine in the heat of battle. U.S. Army Signal Corps, National Archives via Wikimedia

A GOOD SOLDIER STICKS TO HIS POST! And factory workers – “Soldiers of Production,” need to stick to the job at hand. Despite an apparent head wound and with artillery shells exploding nearby, this determined GI is no slacker, blasting the enemy with long bursts of bullets from his M1917A1 Browning Machine Gun. Credit: U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia

June 1942, Fort Knox Kentucky. Famed commercial photographer Alfred Palmer skillfully staged and captured this dramatic color image of a young GI with his pedestal mounted M1917A1, a 30-06 caliber, water cooled, belt fed machine gun, training to shoot down the enemy’s close attack aircraft. Credit: Office of War Information, National Archives via Wikimedia                                   

YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO MISS EITHER! With bursts from his powerful .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun, this aerial gunner has just sent a Japanese Zero fighter into a fiery death spiral and he’s eager to get another one. The message to all American adult civilians is not to miss regularly purchasing War Bonds to finance the astronomical costs of the war effort. Credit: Office of War Information, National Archives via Wikimedia

1943. Staff Sergeant Maynard Smith posing for a news release photo with a .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun in a bomber’s waist gunner window position. Smith was a ball turret gunner in the 423^rd Bomb Squadron, 306^th Bomb Group, 8^th Air Force, on the 1 May 1943 mission to bomb heavily defended German submarine pens at Saint-Nazaire, France. His heroism and gunnery skill against a swarm of enemy fighter planes on that fateful day led to him earning the Medal of Honor. Credit: Army Air Corps, U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia  

KEEP IT UP BROTHER. THIS WAR’S NOT WON BY A DAMN SIGHT! With an M1911A1 pistol at the ready, this brave GI in the heat of combat urges defense factory workers to work harder and not slow down just because it looks like the Allies are beginning to win the war. Credit: Office of War Information, National Archives via Wikimedia

December 1942, Achncarry, Scotland. Armed with a hard-hitting, highly reliable, semiauto, .45 ACP M1911A1 pistol, this mud splattered soldier of the U.S. Army’s 29^th Ranger Battalion is ready to move out during intense commando training under battle-hardened British Royal Marines. In live fire or the real thing, he would certainly have racked the slide to load a round and move the hammer into cocked position. Credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps, National Archives

Unfortunately, the word “propaganda” has come to be regarded as something bad; misleading at best and outright lies at worst. While this is true in too many cases, propaganda as originally intended is employed in various forms simply as a means of persuading its audience.

Between 1914 and 1918 – the period of “The Great War” (World War One, as we have come to call it) – poster art had achieved well-deserved prominence as an advertising and communications medium.

Usually big and bold, with colorful, eye-catching images and compelling words, posters were displayed almost anywhere a vertical surface was available on which to paste them.

So, posters were an obvious choice for mostly ethical propaganda as a means of encouraging a nation’s populace to support the war effort in all aspects. Messages included recruiting, training, honoring battle prowess, soliciting money, spurring greater war production, and certainly to negatively characterize the enemy.

As noted by O.W. Riegel, a propaganda analyst for the U.S. Office of War Information, “In the overall view, posters of the First World War were exhortations that sought to exploit people’s conscious or subconscious vulnerabilities to appeals to basic emotions of self-preservation, tribal patriotic pride, and traditional morality.”

What we’re offering here is a small selection from among thousands of these propaganda posters produced by combatant nations embroiled in the first war of a truly global scale.

And since our focus is, of course, on man portable weaponry, our choices are based on how some prominent examples of these weapons were skillfully and dramatically incorporated in the messaging.

MEN WANTED FOR THE ARMY. When this poster was created in 1914, the war in Europe had just started but America was officially neutral. Foreseeing what would soon become inevitable, the woefully undermanned U.S. Army stepped up recruiting. Here, a stalwart infantry corporal carrying an M1903 Springfield rifle leads his squad running toward their objective. The iconic felt campaign hats would be exchanged in 1917 for British style “tin hats” or French “Adrian” helmets in the trenches. Credit: Library of Congress via Wikimedia

May 18, 1918, Badonviller, France. These “Doughboys” of the American 42^nd Division are snipers, draped from head to toe in formless sack cloth camouflage and armed with M1903 Springfields, the Army’s standard infantry rifle. Highly accurate and very reliable, the 8.7-pound .30-06 caliber, bolt action rifle was sometimes fitted with an optical scope for target identification and longer-range sniping. Credit: US Army Signal Corps, National Archives

“AMMUNITION!” This American soldier has his hand outstretched in a plea for more ammo for his smoking hot French 8mm Hotchkiss Mle 1914 machine gun. Somewhat improbably slung over his shoulder, he has a .30-06 caliber M1903 Springfield Rifle with fixed bayonet. Civilians at home were urged to buy War Bonds to help finance the astronomical costs of war materiel. Credit: Library of Congress

May 10, 1918, France. U.S. 1^st Infantry Division soldiers on the firing range with a French Mle 1914 machine gun on the awkward Omnibus tripod. When serving alongside French forces, shortages of American weapons and ammunition, as well as logistical efficiency, dictated the need to equip American troops with these combat-proven, 8mm, strip fed, air cooled guns with distinctive “doughnut” cooling fins. Note their “tin hat” style Brodie helmets, a holstered .45 caliber M1911 pistol, and sheathed “bolo” knife. Credit: US Army Heritage and Education Center

FIRST IN FRANCE. Deployed to the European battlefields at Verdun in March 1918, American Marines were – along with elements of the U.S. Army’s 2^nd Division – the first U.S. troops to join the fight against Germany and its allies. The artist has portrayed this charging “Devil Dog’s” .30-06 caliber Lewis Gun on ungainly bipod with dead-on accuracy. While not specific in intent, multiple messages are conveyed in this poster including praise for courageous Marines, sparking admiration among civilians at home and inspiring young men to enlist in the Corps. Credit: Library of Congress

1917. No location noted but probably on the range at MCB Quantico, Virginia, the Marine Corps is conducting firing tests of the Lewis Machine Gun. Soon proving quite satisfactory, some 6,000 of these were quickly ordered from Savage Arms. These pan-fed, air cooled, .30-06 caliber Model 1917 guns armed Marines sent to France in 1917. Credit: Library of Congress

MINE MORE COAL. This poster serves dual duty in urging America’s coal miners to increase production because coal fuels war material factories and fires boilers in trains and in cargo ships transporting supplies to soldiers in France. Dramatically posed side by side with pickaxe and Browning Automatic Rifle at the ready, they both fulfill necessary and honorable duty in the war. Credit: Library of Congress

18 February 1918, France. US Army Lieutenant Val Browning, son of prolific firearms inventor John M. Browning, is conducting a demonstration of his father’s Model 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. The 15½ pound weapon was fed by a detachable magazine holding twenty .30-06 cartridges. Although not arriving until very late in the war, these highly reliable and accurate machine rifles were a godsend to Doughboys previously armed with the crude but surprisingly useful French Chauchat. Credit: U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

THEY SHALL NOT PASS! “Twice I have stood fast and conquered on the Marne,” saving Paris from German occupation. By 1918, French and Allied soldiers had been deadlocked in vicious, savage and increasingly futile trench warfare for four horrific years. With bayonet fixed on his Fusil Modéle 1886/93 “Lebel” rifle, this ragged, battle-ravaged Poilu stands defiantly amid the shell blasted desolation of “no mans land.” Credit: Author’s collection/Library of Congress

1912, France. Two years before the outbreak of war, these well dressed and fully equipped French Chasseurs pause briefly during training maneuvers. An impressively long Modéle 1886/93 rifle in the foreground is readily identified by its straight bolt handle and 30½ inch long barrel. Its tubular magazine holds eight rounds of 8mm Lebel smokeless powder cartridges. Credit: Bibliotheque Nationale De France via Wikimedia

AND YOU? Sign War Loans. Asking his fellow German citizens to give money to support the war, a somewhat forlorn German infantryman clutches a “potato masher” stick grenade, ready to assault enemy trenches. This not so subtle, guilt-inducing appeal to civilians of the Fatherland is seen in similar posters from all the other combatant nations. Credit: Philasearch.com via Wikimedia

STAHLHELM HELDEN (Steel Helmet Heroes). This propaganda postcard image is from a series depicting heroic German soldiers in WWI. Here, Stosstruppen (shock troops) assault French positions with a hail of Stielhandgranaten (stick grenades). Additional grenades are carried in pairs of sandbags draped over their shoulders. This is a late war scene, probably 1917 or 1918 when grenades of all types had become the primary weapons of trench warriors on both sides. Credit: Philasearch.com via Wikimedia

MILITARY WAR LOANS. The Imperial Russian Army was very poorly prepared when it entered the war against Germany in 1914. A rush to mobilization and necessary war production followed, including the need for large numbers of heavy machine guns. This 1916 poster shows a rather idealized and uncommonly clean gun crew in combat action, firing their Pulemyot Maxima PM1910 (Maxim’s machine gun Model 1910) and urges everyone to “aid our glorious troops, and all who can must subscribe to the 5½ percent war loan.” Credit: Baburina N.I. via Wikimedia    

Although this photo was taken a decade or so after the Revolution of 1917 that took Tsarist Russia out of WWI, it’s useful in depicting the similar composition of a typical Red Army heavy machine gun section. Under the watchful eyes of two pistol-packing officers and flanked by protective riflemen who double as ammunition carriers, the gunner and his assistant are prepared to engage the enemy with a torrent of powerful 7.62 mm bullets from their Pulemyot Maxima PM1910. This iconic water-cooled and belt-fed weapon, characterized by its steel shield and wheeled Sokolov mount, has a sustained fire capability of 600 rounds per minute. Credit: Ukrainian SSR via Wikimedia