--- title: A boy died last night url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/a-boy-died-last-night-war-bond-1943/ description: 'Black-and-white sheet with a heavy black border: a drawing of a fallen airman lying on sand, and a long typed text describing his death alone' section: Collection --- 1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/) 2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/) 3. A boy died last night **Content note:** Drawing of a dead airman lying on the ground beside a long text describing his death. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) [![A boy died last night, 1943 US poster: Black-and-white sheet with a heavy black border](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/a-boy-died-last-night-war-bond-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/a-boy-died-last-night-war-bond-1943.jpg) # A boy died last night Black-and-white sheet with a heavy black border: a drawing of a fallen airman lying on sand, and a long typed text describing his death alone in the desert, ending 'to avenge that boy'. The text asks civilians to give up profit and comfort. Fear-appeal and emotional narrative; the unsigned newspaper editorial is reproduced as the message. ## Propaganda techniques used in this poster [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/) ## Text on the object Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked ``` A Boy Died Last Night A boy died last night. It doesn't make much difference now about his name. The important thing is that he died in poignant and awful loneliness, out somewhere on a waste of sand, out in a starless silence, ten thousand miles from home. "Missing in Action," read an obscure line in this morning's communique. That was all. Now he lies there, crumbled beside the twisted wreckage of his plane, riding high in the sunlit heavens. The fine head and the shining face and the broad shoulders remain only in a picture that looks out upon a quiet living room on a shaded street an eternity away. Last night, in those agonizing hours of unspeakable isolation, he went through a thousand deaths without the one thing that might have helped a little--the sound of a familiar voice, the pat of a friendly hand. The pain was terrible enough. But there was that dreadful burden of thought in those endless last hours. Mom and Pop. The flowers blooming again in the back yard. The good old roadster in the driveway. That last sweetheart kiss at the station. Those dances last summer. That half-finished letter in his blouse. All those plans for the future. Couldn't somebody find him, please? Too much for you, all this? But it really happened last night, just like that. If people could only understand it, if they could just grind deep into their thinking the stark, terrible reality of it, every petty, selfish interest would be swept away. They would sacrifice anything just to make themselves worthy of that boy. They would rise up and demand that their government take anything, everything needed, take away every last penny of profit, render uncertain every commonplace comfort, and easy security just to avenge that boy. He died last night, you see. There's no getting around that. --The Louisville Courier-Journal Reproduced for Sixth Service Command War Bond Office. [imprint:] ENGR. BRANCH MAP & REPRODUC. SEPT. 1943 ``` [← A blow to the Axis: more lumber for the Army](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/a-blow-to-the-axis-lumber-1943/) [A careless word... another cross →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/a-careless-word-another-cross-1943/) ## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques - [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written. - [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers. - [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal) - [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling) - [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms. - [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal) - [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered. - [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)