---
title: Air Fronts
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/air-fronts-army-poster-1944/
description: 'Army photo-sheet titled AIR FRONTS: five captioned aerial photographs (a B-24 over a German submarine and raft, a burning B-17, a C-46 on a muddy strip.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Air Fronts

**Content note:** Caption uses the period ethnic slur 'Jap' for Japanese forces, and shows a burning bomber and a sub's survivors, as printed. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Air Fronts, 1944 US poster: Army photo-sheet titled AIR FRONTS: five captioned aerial photographs](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/air-fronts-army-poster-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/air-fronts-army-poster-1944.jpg)

# Air Fronts

Army photo-sheet titled AIR FRONTS: five captioned aerial photographs (a B-24 over a German submarine and raft, a burning B-17, a C-46 on a muddy strip, glider tow over China hills, B-29 beside a B-17) under the U.S. Army air insignia. Captions use praise words such as 'gallant' and 'victorious'. The technique is card-stacking: only successful or heroic scenes are chosen.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
AIR FRONTS
BEGINNING AND END. A Liberator (just visible at top) is about to pounce on a doomed German sub. Battle over, Nazi survivors (see inset) await capture in a raft tossed to them by the victorious B-24.
GLORY ROAD. Hit by flak over Nis, Yugoslavia, a gallant Fort makes her last bombing run, streaming flames in an awesome wake across the sky. Another plane in the B-17's formation took this grim picture.
GLIDING HIGH above the China Hills, glider-borne British troops ride the tow-rope behind the planes of Colonel Philip Cochran's AAF Commandos. They slipped down east of Imphal for a crack at Jap invaders of India.
C-46 TAKES A MUD BATH in stride. Everything that goes in and out of China must travel by air and the giant Curtiss transport, lifeline for China and our forces there, doesn't wait for runways to be completed.
SUPERFORTRESS—the fabulous B-29 dwarfs the B-17 Fort shown here with it, has almost twice the engine power, half again the size, wings spanning 141 feet.
U.S. ARMY OFFICIAL POSTER
ISD NO. 178
[imprint:] U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944 O-595914
25350 / A-28037
```

[← Air Fronts (U.S. Army Official Poster)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/air-fronts-army-official-poster-1944/) [Air Fronts (Graveyard, Air Evacuation, The Mustang's Kick, This Marauder Got Home) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/air-fronts-graveyard-air-evacuation-1944/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Behistun (Bisotun) rock relief and trilingual inscription of Darius I: the king, two attendants and the bound rebel leaders beneath the winged figure of Ahuramazda](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/behistun-relief-darius-and-rebels-521bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Shows bound captives before the king, and the inscription records the mutilation and public execution of rebel leaders, as the king's own account.
- [Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam: the king in relief beside his inscription DNa, c. 490 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dna-inscription-darius-i-naqsh-e-rustam-490bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Testimonial, Card stacking)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Persepolis, Apadana staircase relief: a figure with an animal from a procession of delegations, early fifth century BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/persepolis-apadana-delegate-relief-500bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Manufactured consensus)
- [Alabaster relief, Assyrian troops storming a citadel, from Nineveh (reign of Sennacherib)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/relief-sennacherib-storming-citadel-nineveh-704bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Card stacking). Content note: An Assyrian palace relief of troops storming a fortified city, with a file of figures below; Assyrian royal reliefs and texts record killing, mutilation and deportation, shown as carved, with the historical context and scholarly dispute on the regime page.
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Silver denarius of Vespasian, reverse IVDAEA with a trophy of arms and a seated mourning woman](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/denarius-vespasian-judaea-capta-0070/) (Roman Empire · 0070 · Card stacking). Content note: A Roman victory coin showing a mourning female figure as the personification of the conquered province of Judaea after the Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt; shown as struck, with the historical context on the regime page.