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
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
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Sixth Service Command War Bond Office, U.S. Army (text from The Louisville Courier-Journal)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Fundraise
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front, Economy and finance
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Sixth Service Command War Bond Office. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-269 (NAID 513718).
Text on the object
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
