Content note: Captions use period terms for the enemy (Jap, Nazi) as printed; photographs of aircraft destroyed in combat. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Air Fronts (U.S. Army Official Poster)
Photo-montage sheet headed Air Fronts: aerial views of bombs falling on a New Guinea airfield, smoke over Ploesti, a P-47 strafing a flak tower, a B-29 tail and gun-camera frames of a German fighter hit. Captions describe only successful strikes and the one lost B-17 is a small insert; the technique is card-stacking by selection of images.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1944
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. Army (Army Air Forces); printed by U.S. Government Printing Office
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Reassure
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front
- 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)
U.S. Army. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-319 (NAID 513766).
Text on the object
AIR FRONTS PARAFRAG BOMBS (Left) settling among Jap planes (numbers indicate four different types) on Dagua Airdrome, Wewak, New Guinea. Bombs fall slowly, permitting our low-level bombers to get clear. SMOKE ROSE 20,000 FEET (Below) when Liberators and Fortresses recently bombed heavily defended Ploesti, Romania, oil fields. See the dark tip of that almost-four-mile smoke column among the clouds. Insert - a B-17 that didn't come back. FLAK TOWER IN FRANCE. The strafing P-47 Thunderbolt swoops dangerously close to hit its mark. Bursts can be seen striking the tower, which protects a German airdrome. EAGLE AND SPARROW of the Army Air Forces. The tail of that king of American eagles, the majestic new B-29 Superfortress, is as long as the entire Culver Kaydet plane parked cozily beneath it. NAZI TORCH SONG. You're looking through the eyes of a U. S. fighter as he sends a Messerschmitt 109 blazing to earth. Many of our pursuit planes now slashing from England at Hitler's heartland carry cameras that bring back evidence of their kills-like the P-38 Lightning shown here. U. S. ARMY OFFICIAL POSTER [imprint:] I. S. D. NO. 181 U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1944 O - [illegible]
