As explored in our two previous online offerings of selected World War motivational posters, we continue to emphasize the importance of obviously contrived “propaganda” to encourage both civilians and military forces to commit themselves and their efforts to victory.

From 1940 to 1945 major nations of the world were locked in a desperate fight to the death. Would America and its Allied nations – principally the United Kingdom and Soviet Union – preserve freedom? Or would the “Axis” forces of Germany, Italy and Japan impose slavery under their iron fisted rule?  

“Propaganda,” the art of persuasion, was skillfully employed by all powers in the conflict. We see this in selectively edited movie newsreels, tightly scripted radio broadcasts, censored newspaper features, and a proliferation of remarkably effective posters, the subject of this feature series.

While some today will probably find the graphics and messages in the posters seen here to be unsophisticated and even intolerably offensive, the intended audiences of the time – friend and foe – lived in dire circumstances. Arrogantly applying “modern standards of correctness” to what was necessary and undeniably effective eight decades ago in the 1940s needs to be suspended in order to understand the people and peril of the time.

YOUR ENEMY THE JAP. “The Jap is a fanatical fighter. His motto is ‘WIN OR DIE.’ There are 4,000,000 of them under arms with 2,000,000 more ready if needed. We have not yet met the main body of this huge, tough army.” Although undated, this official U.S. Navy poster was probably published sometime after 1943 when the tide of war had turned in Allied favor. “Island hopping” pressed on in the Pacific with vicious fighting to take a series of strategic, enemy held islands that would almost inevitably require invasion of the fanatically defended Japanese mainland.  Credit: U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia

No location, probably circa 1939-40. Posing for a formalized portrait with his long, bolt action 6.5mm Type 38 Arisaka rifle and Type 30 bayonet, this youthful Japanese infantryman doesn’t seem to fit the propaganda image of a bloodthirsty murderer of civilians and POWs. But appearances can be deceiving, and one official analysis of Japan’s widespread instances of horrific war crimes noted uncompromising indoctrination in the warrior code Bushido that all the Emperor’s forces received. “…when the Japanese murdered POWs by shooting, beheading, and drowning, these acts were excused since they involved the killing of men who had forfeited all rights to be treated with dignity or respect.” Credit: Australian War Memorial

So wie kampfen Arbeite Du fur den sieg! “As hard as we fight, you work for the victory!” Pausing momentarily in the midst of battle, this ruggedly handsome German soldier implores those in support units, on the home front, on farms, and in factories to support the fighting forces. With two distinctive “potato masher” stick grenades in his belt and one ready to throw, the message is clear that untold numbers of these and all other types of war materiel must be made and rushed to the front. Credit: Deutsche Kriegspropaganda via Wikimedia

Instruction – Stick Hand Grenade 24 with Combustion Igniter 24. This training aid display featuring a cutaway view of the classic German Stielhandgranate 24 was used to familiarize Allied soldiers with its inner workings and perhaps even prepare them to use captured examples when needed. Primarily an offensive weapon relying on concussion effects, it was also an effective antipersonnel grenade with addition of a serrated metal sleeve slipped over the can shaped head. Credit: Canadian War Museum, Ottawa via Wikimedia

E TU..COSA FAI? “And what did you do?” Standing boldly with a German infantry comrade on the battlefield, this determined Italian soldier challenges his countrymen. Readily identified as a member of an elite Bersaglieri formation by the distinctive black capercaillie feathers on his helmet, it is known that the 1^st Bersagliari Division “Italia” was attached to the German 14^th Army in Eastern Europe. Credit: Poland’s Museum of the Second World War via Wikimedia

Moschetto Modello 91/38 Cavalleria. The Italian M91/38 Cavalry Carbine is a compact, bolt action weapon firing 6.5 x 52mm Carcano cartridges from a six round internal magazine. Shorter and lighter than its rifle counterpart with a spike bayonet handily folded underneath its 17.5-inch barrel, it was issued to horse and bicycle cavalry units as well as the elite Bersaglieri units. Credit: SARCO, Inc. (which is currently offering some of these well used but serviceable carbines for a mere $155.)

ENGAGEZ-VOUS RENGAGEZ-VOUS L’INFANTERIE DE L’ARMEE NOUVELLE. “Enlist yourself, re-enlist in the infantry of the new army.” Advancing at a run with his Fusil Mitrailleur 1924/ M29, this stylized French infantryman appears ready to take on Allied armies – enemies of the Vichy government – a collaborationist regime of Nazi-occupied France. Credit: Argonnaute Parisnanterre via Wikimedia

France, ca. 1938. These French infantrymen standing watch outside their log bunker are prepared to repel the enemy with a little Mosqueton Mle 1916 on the left and a formidable Mle 1924/M29 automatic rifle. Feeding 25 rounds of powerful 7.5mm cartridges from a top mounted magazine, this 20-pound, air cooled machine rifle has dual triggers, firing semi auto from one and 550 rounds-per-minute full auto from the other. Credit: Musee de L’Armee via Wikimedia

This man is your FRIEND – Russian – He fights for FREEDOM. Well, since the poster was released in 1942, Stalin’s Red Army – previously joining Hitler’s Wehrmacht in the invasion of Poland – had by then switched to the Allied side. This image of a grinning Russian sniper is intended to offset understandable confusion among U.S. and Allied forces as to whether “Ivan” was a good guy or what. Credit: U.S. Office of War Information, National Archives via Wikimedia 

A Soviet sniper searches for a fascist target. Scanning his assigned sector through the four-power PE optical sight, this well-hidden Red Army sharpshooter will reach out hundreds of yards with precisely aimed 7.62 mm bullets from his specially selected, bolt action M1891/30 Mosin-Nagant rifle. Note, the rifle’s bolt handle is turned down so it clears the scope and mount. Credit: Tass via waralbum.ru 

This man is your FRIEND – Englishman – He fights for FREEDOM.  Not as tricky a task as that of portraying Russkis as buddies, America’s traditional British allies are readily recognized by their characteristically cheerful demeanor and “tin hat” helmets. This smiling “Tommy” shoulders a massive Boys antitank rifle. Credit: U.S. Office of War Information, National Archives via Wikimedia                      

The bolt action Mark 1 Boys Anti-tank rifle with a magazine holding five massive, hard-hitting .55 caliber (14mm) cartridges could penetrate almost an inch of steel armor head-on. Although weighing in at 35 pounds and fitted with a muzzle brake on its 36-inch-long barrel, recoil and muzzle blast were said to be punishing.  Credit: SA-Kuva Archive (Finland) via Wikimedia

Let’s Go …CANADA ! In this classically inspiring motivational and recruiting poster, a fair-haired Canadian lad with bayonet fixed on his British pattern SMLE rifle looks eager to join the fight against the Axis powers. Proudly billowing behind him is the British “Union Jack,” known in Canada as the Royal Union Flag, versions of which are incorporated in all of the United Kingdom’s Commonwealth Nations. Credit: Canadian Director of Public Information via Illinois State University and Wikimedia  

Hampshire, England, 1941. A gas masked British infantryman with bayonet tipped SMLE rifle advances through a smoke simulated “poison gas” fog in a training exercise. His bolt action, .303 caliber Number 1 Mark III Short Magazine Lee Enfield measures 49.5 inches overall and weighs in at 9.25 pounds not counting the menacing 17-inch-bladed Pattern 1907 bayonet. Credit: Imperial War Museum via Wikimedia

NEW ZEALAND. ALLY DOWN UNDER. Presenting idealized portraits of “Kiwi” soldiers armed with an Owen submachine gun and SMLE rifle, the simple message to American and other Allied soldiers is to know that these men are on your side. ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) were prominent both initially and throughout the war in the fight against Japanese forces in the Pacific. Credit: U.S. Office of War Information, National Archives via Wikimedia

New Guinea, April 1945. Cradling a 9mm Owen Machine Carbine, this ANZAC soldier, Private R.F. Gaudry of the 2/3 Infantry Battalion, is on guard against Japanese infiltrators. This handy and highly regarded submachine gun, instantly recognizable by its top mounted 33-round magazine and quick removable barrel with diagonal compensator cuts, was a home-grown development of Australian Evelyn Owen, a vast improvement over the British STEN. Credit: Australian War Memorial via Wikimedia

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