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Published by the Office of War lnforynatioll, London, in cooperationwith the U.S. Amry, ETO . .


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Here's a copy of a leaflet used on the Japs and some the Japswho gave up . Who said a Jap never surrenders?


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O NE sweltering day on Guadalcanal an Armysergeant swung around and covered somemoving bushes with his tommy-gun. He sawa Jap crawl out-and the little fellow didn't make awarlike move. He sidled over to the Yank, showedhis buck teeth in a hissy grin and handed him anAmerican leaflet. On it were the words, " Come overto our lines. Bring this leaflet to the nearest Americanoutpost and you will save your life."

In January, 1943, in Tunisia, a group of Italiansran over to the American lines waving safe conductleaflets which told the story of our landing in NorthAfrica. "W e didn't know you Americans were inNorth Africa," they said. "If we ' d known that wewould have surrendered long ago. We haven't gota chance."

Both in the South-west Pacific and in the Mediterranean, where the young American army foughtand won its first large-scale victories in this war, theleaflet was used with good effect.

But it was in North Africa and Italy that the Allied


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Command experimented with this new weapon on alarge scale. The thousands of prisoners who wereinduced to surrender showed that the experimentwere a complete success. New techniques were triedboth in writing and in disseminating leaflets. Theywere dropped by plane, fired into the enemy's linesby 2s-pounders and even by Iss-mm. guns, left onthe enemy's doorstep by reconnaissance patrols andsecret agents. They told him that his position washopeless, that there was no use for him to go onfighting, that his only hope for getting back to hisfamily was to surrender. And surrender he did.

Near Gabes an entire Italian tank battalion (unfortunately without its tanks) surrendered to theAmerican forces without firing a shot. They ex-plained that they had decided on this step afterseeing one of our leaflets. A German deserter revealedthat after seven men had deserted from the 69thInfantry Regiment an order was issued that if furtherdesertions took place every tenth man would beshot. A German court-martial sentenced one soldierto five years' hard labour for not delivering to hissuperior officer one of our leaflets. The sentence wasordered posted on all unit bulletin boards. TheGerman High Command, realising fully the im-


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A load of Germans wlw 'won't be shooting our way airy more-and a copy of a leaflet they carried with them when they gave up.


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portance of psychological warfare, took stronsteps to counteract our leaflet work. Apart fromthreats of severe punishment it warned agains" this poisonous flood," ordered troops to hand oveenemy leaflets at once to their officers, and issued to alofficers a handbook entitled, " The Officer as Leadein the Fight Against Enemy Propaganda."

As the campaign in Tunisia was drawing to an endArabs 'in and around the city of Tunis collected safconduct leaflets dropped by our planes and peddledthem to German and Italian troops. A regular blacmarket was carried on with these leaflets, whosprices fluctuated from day to day in proportion tothe amount" available."

We pressed our advantage. Before the campaigin North Africa was many months old, GeneraAnderson, Commanding the British First Armyissued a special letter calling attention to leaflets as ameans of warfare. General Alexander, GeneraEisenhower's Deputy, requested an intensive five-dayleaflet barrage against the Germans and Italianretreating northward from Sfax. A G-2 report fromH.Q. of the Second Corps on the Battle ofEI Guettacontained the tribute, "Throughout the operationprisoners of war confirmed the effectiveness o


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OFF ICE OF WAR INFORMATIONUNITED ST AT ES GOVEFINM ENl

EFF'ECT OF' ALLIED LEAFLETS b N '['HE MORALEOF AXIS TROOPS IN SICILY. PAl'ITELLArtI AAND IN NORTH AFRICA

AM ER ICAN EMBASSY

The fo l lowing s3mple of .9 toe tements made byGerman and I t a l i a n P s /w on the e f f e c t o f A l l i e d l e a f l e t s hasbeen c u l l e d from va r i ous o f f i c i a l r epo r t s . A ll the s t a t e -ments are i n d i r e c t quo ta t l ons e ~ c e p t where d i r e c t quotes a reused , 'lhe ex ten t o f the e f f e c t can. be g Btl;lered from , theP-IB Repor t rtated 1 .7 . 43 to the Chief o f S t a f f . Between May2 0 th and Ju ly 1 s t 20,2 07 , 000 l e a f l e t s have been produced byP','IB , and 13,55 0 ,00 0 have been dropped by the All' r 'orc e .Heoor t from Genera l Ei _Ienhower ' s Headquar ters ! 26 . 3 .43 .

I t a l i a n P/II (p r iv a te ) s t a t ed t h a t h is u n i tfound cople .9 of t : , ~ All ied 1e af1e t ' ' l ' r ipoli e Caduta I . Theyd i scussed it a nd decided to sur render if oppor tun i ty o f fe r ed.I,vhen the AmI'! r i C 1l. n s a tt s cked on Ma r ch 23rd , the un i t sur renderedwi thou t fir i n r:; a s h o t . '!h i s s to ry was conf i rmed independent lyby a serc;ean t o f the sane un i t.G_2 Reported 15.4 . 43. Headquarters 2nd Co r ps .

"Ba t t l e o f El Guet ta r : Propaganda! 'lbroughoutthe ope r s t i ons prlsOl le rs of war confirm e d the e f fec t iveness ofp ropAcanda l ea f le t s . Such l ea f1e ts were suppl l ed through thePsychologica l Warfare Branch of AFHQ, in any desi red volume . 1ICable 26 . 4.43 - from AFHQ .

A German P/W cap tured by the 2nd Corps pu l l edan h l l i ed l e a f l e t from hi s oocket and sa id : "Thi s 1s a l l t rue .'lhi s i s why I su r rende red . I I "An I t s l i an Pl'iJ (Major) p'ro d uced a l e a f l e t a s soon

as he was cap tur e d and s t a ted tha t they ha d a depress1ng e f f e c ton the e n l i s t e d men .


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propaganda leaflets."This use of leaflets might be called tactical. It is

psychological warfare waged directly against enemytroops. It reduces opposition. It brings in prisoners.To quote one G-2 officer after the Battle ofEl Guettar," It saves American lives." And that's the best itcould do, whether you call it tactical or strategic.

But what is the strategical use of leaflets? Well,during the first years of the war the best examples'would have been what the Germans did. But sincethe landing in North Africa we have had somedramatic successes. The landing itself is an excellentexample.

The German and Italian Armistice Commissionsand their Vichy puppets had a firm grip on NorthAfrica. It wasn't altogether certain by any meansthat there wouldn't be stiff opposition to our landing.General Eisenhower had to take that into account.So before the troops ever went ashore leaflets weredropped around the landing areas signed withGeneral Eisenhower's name telling the inhabitantsthat the Americans were coming as friends, and thatthey were bringing Freedom. The landing tookplace with a minimum loss of life. And the fact thatthere was so little bloodshed between Frenchmen and


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Americans paved the way for the participation ofFrench troops in the Tunisian campaign. Itguaranteed us friendship and co-operation where wemight have had enmity and opposition.Or take the case of Pantellaria. It was from aleaflet dropped by our planes that the Italian commander first learned of the Allied Forces' invitationto surrender. According to a G-2 report fromA.F.H.Q. the Allies' second surrender letter was alsodropped as a leaflet. The Italian commander, therepor:t goes on to say, " ordered the white flag and thewhite crosses put out the next morning before heknew that the landing forces were approaching."

On July 16, 1943, shortly after our landing inSicily, millions of leaflets bearing the joint messageof Prime Minister Churchill and President Rooseveltto the Italian people were dropped all over Italy.The message called upon the Italian people to make achoice between dying for Mussolini and Hitler andliving for Italy. On July 19th Hitler and Mussolinimet in northern Italy. On July 25th Mussoliniwas forced to resign.That is the strategical use of leaflets.

Together with the other weapons of psychologicalwarfare, such as radio, the leaflet penetrates deep


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The News Fights For UsThe oppressed people i f Europe know by now that the newsfed to them via the loudspeakers and presses of Dr . Goebbels isneither true nor sometimes even new, so that one of our bestpropaganda weapons is plain, simple news- the news which wefreemen sometimes forget is not available to everyone .Here are three newspapers in three languages which are droppedover Europe, but they are a little more than newspapers, in the /American sense of the word. Sternenhanner, the German one(its name means, literally, "Star-Spangled Banner") goesbeyond the fact of Italy's capitulation and explains the"significance.This is because German home propaganda says that Italy'ssurrender to us is qf no importance . We explain that it is, andwhy. .The French paper (its title means" Fighting America " ) stressesthe fact that Italy surrendered-unconditionally-the only kind 1qf surrender the United Nations accept. The picture of a dis-gruntled Hitler tells the news, too, as does the simple map withthe caption-" And one less! "Letter from America is the small-size Norwegian paper (smallfor easier smuggling) which gives the Norwegians the backg roundof news from America. The lead story tells the epic of Americanproduction, and how this will affect the people of Norway. ,

;, The picture of bombs from a Fort falling on Nazi installatiollsTrondheim, Norway, is captioned simply: "America

Has Come ."


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into the enemy's territory and reaches all his people .It brings to them the same message that causes theA"is soldier to desert. I t reaches the man andwoman in the factory and the mine-the underfed,terrorized slaves who keep Hitler's war machineturning over. It tells them that their sacrifices andtheir misery are in vain, that the Nazis cannot winthe war. The leaflet brings home to them that ourbullets and bombs are meant for the Nazi profiteersand slave drivers, but that to the enslaved people webrillg justice and the hope of freedom .

The rising curve of prison sentences in Germany for"spreading enemy propaganda," and the fallingcurve of Nazi war production, give evidence ofstrategic success . A tank or machine gun that isn'tproduced will never be used against our soldiers.And there is another strategic usc for leaflets whoseimportance will become fully apparent only later.All over Occupied Europe the Nazis are confiscatingradio sets. So leaflets are used to keep in touch withour friends in Europe- both those who are still inthe occupied countries and those who have beend e p ~ ) f t e d to Germany as slave labour. These men andwomen all over Europe are kept in a mental blackoutby the Nazis . To them we must bring the news of


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the rising tide of United Nations victory. We mustbring them the contact with the world outside theconcentration camp . Otherwise Nazi propagandaand the hopelessness of ignorance might crush theirwill to fight. We must tell them that they have aplace in United Nations strategy, so that when thetime comes we can count on them to rise and fightlike soldiers. These allies of ours within the enemy'sgates can speed victory and make it less costly.

War has 'become total, a nd the High Commandson both sides have cast about for new and differentweapons to help them win. Psychological warfare isone of the most important of these new weapons, andit is recognized as such by our Commander-in-Chief.President Roosevelt himself has written two leaflets,one to be dropped on France and one on thePhilippines; and many of his statements and mes-sages have, at his specific order, been dropped asleaflets.

Leaflets and radio transmissions are prepared aspart of a co-ordinated, strategic plan determined bythe President, his Chiefs of Staff, the State Department and the Office of War Information. In this wayit is assured that military policy, foreign policy andpsychological knowledge of the enemy combine to


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place in the hands of the Theater Commander apowerful new weapon.

This weapon alone cannot win a modern war.Nor can anyone weapon alone win a total war.Radio is not a magic wand. Leaflets will not stopbullets or make the enemy disappear. Psychologicalwarfare attains its full usefulness only when used inconjunction with the other arms of warfare-andthen its contribution to the common purpose is clear.

Few better definitions of this circumstance havebeen given than by one of its early maestros, JosephGoebbels. In the course of a long appeal in July,1943, to the German people to keep their nerves andnot to despair, Goebbels said, "The war of nervesaccompanies the war of weapons like a shadow .I t does not resound to the noise of cannon or stormingPanzer divisions; but its quiet symbolizes the grimsilence with which this battle is waged." Comingfrom an old expert like Goebbels this is a frank ad-mission that we now know how to wage this particularkind of war to the best advantage .

Hindenburg and Ludendorff admitted after thelast war that the collapse of the German army hadbeen hastened considerably by Allied leaflets. AndHitler in " Mein Kampf" said-" In the summer of


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1915 the first enemy leaflets were dropped on ourtrenches..... This persistent propaganda began tohave a real influence on our soldiers in 1915. Thefeeling against Prussia grew quite noticeable amongstthe Bavarian troops.... In this direction the enemypropaganda began to achieve undoubted successfrom 1916 onwards." But in the period betweenthe two wars the Germans learned that lesson andacted on it. It seemed as if we had forgotten it.

One of the first decrees published in Germany afterHitler invaded Poland on September I , 1939, madelistening to foreign radio stations, spreading enemynews or leaflets punishable by imprisonment ordeath. Goebbelswasquarantining the German homefront while he went on the propaganda offensive.

In April, 1940, a German brass band playing theBeer Barrel Polka (it was originally a German circustune called Rosamunde) helped take Oslo. Thencame the collapse of France. Joseph GoebbeIs brokethe back of French resistance in 1939 and 1940 byspreading the poison of "What 's the use?" and" The English are fighting to the last Frenchman"with tens ofmillions ofleaflets. Parisians rubbed theireyes one day in the spring of 1940 when they saw thestreets littered with autumn leaves. The" leaves"


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This Naz i job was one of he most succesiful leaflets ever dropped.

were Nazi leaflets with the message, "If you fightEngland's battle your soldiers will fall like autumnleaves." Another one ofGoebbels' best was a drawingof French soldiers, tired and dirty in a forwardposition while in the background a French womanlay in the arms of a British soldier.

I t wasn't until after the collapse of Fra nce thatwe faced the truth-and awoke fully to the new


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possibilities of this weapon. And since Pearl Harbour,even when things were going badly for us, the UnitedStates has used psychological warfare as an offensiveweapon.

We didn't have to quarantine the people at homethe way Goebbels did. When one of our soldiers onGuadalcanal picked up a Jap leaflet with the pictureof a naked woman on it that promised h im" kindtreatment" if he deserted he got the first good laughhe'd had in weeks. G .L's in Tunisia who saw Germanleaflets telling them they were "surroundet"thought at first it was a practical joke. In Englandthe few German leaflets that are still dropped aremet with guffaws.

The reason why Goebbels' leaflets are a joke to. us now and our leaflets are poison to him is simple.Truth is on our side as a priceless ally. We know thetruth, and knowing it we won't fall for lies. On theother hand, Goebbels is keeping his people subduedand docile by feeding them a steady diet of lies-literally that deportation, castration and chaos willbe their fate if they lose the war.Goebbels knows the importance of our psycho-logical warfare offensive. Threats of drasticpunishment are designed to keep people from


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Japs dropped this beauty over the Marines on Guadalcanal,promised her to U.S. Deserters. But there were no takers.


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picking up and reading our leaflets- but don'tGerman propaganda devotes whole broadsides tocounteracting a theme contained in a leaflet. And iwouldn't do so unless that theme had caught onamong the people. In Occupied Europe the peoplecollect leaflets, and are so enthusiastic about themthat the leaflets are worth money. Prices in Francerange up to 150 francs per leaflet.

Goebbels is giving his people Strength throughFear to keep them working for the Nazi war machine.This steady diet of lies has been swallowed onlybecause the Germans have been cut off from thetruth. Our leaflets and radio have been bringing thistruth to millions in Germany. In doing so we havebeen striking at the very root of Hitler's wholeregime. We have been weakening the will to workand fight for a system based on fundamental falsehood.

" THERE ARE TWO WAYS of winning the war-breaking the enemy 's will to fight, and removing his meansI fyou succeed in doing either you win the war. I fyou workon both you do it all the better."

-Lieu t .-General Ira C. Eaker,Commanding U.S. 8th Air Force.


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he fliers who are called upon to fight their waydeep into enemy territory to drop leaflets with theirbombs, and the artillerymen who stand in the frontline to fire leaflet shells on enemy positions shouldknow the part they play. ,Their reward will be three quiet cheerJ , onD-Day from some weary Joe or To 'mmy whow0ltldotherwise ha'l!e a ,Nazi bullet in his hide. Which is enough.


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PROPAGANDA- ANOTHER GUN IN OUR ARSENALThis is how we litera lly shot leaflets at the enemy ill North Africa, Sicilyand Italy-and how we'll do it ell route to Berlill. Above, artillerymenload a special shell filled with leaflets into a standard 25-poundfield piece.Below (left), the leaflets go into the shell and (below, right) they hit thetarge t, this time civilians, but more often soldie1s.

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