---
title: 'Air Fronts: Our Planes Can Take It ... and Dish It Out!'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/air-fronts-our-planes-can-take-it-1943/
description: Air Fronts photo sheet pairing damaged American aircraft that returned or flew again with wrecked Axis aircraft at Tripoli.
section: Collection
---

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3. Air Fronts: Our Planes Can Take It ... and Dish It Out!

[![Air Fronts: Our Planes Can Take It... and Dish It Out!, 1943 US poster: Air Fronts photo sheet pairing damaged American](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/air-fronts-our-planes-can-take-it-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/air-fronts-our-planes-can-take-it-1943.jpg)

# Air Fronts: Our Planes Can Take It ... and Dish It Out!

Air Fronts photo sheet pairing damaged American aircraft that returned or flew again with wrecked Axis aircraft at Tripoli. The headline 'Our planes can take it ... and dish it out!' and captions such as 'they stay wrecked' set a toughness claim against the wreckage; the technique is selective imagery (card-stacking).

## 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
OUR PLANES CAN TAKE IT...
... AND DISH IT OUT !
PAGE MR. RIPLEY! With its fuselage cut almost in half and one elevator torn off when a Messerschmitt plowed into it, this Flying Fortress miraculously flew for 1 1/2 hours and got home. Every weld and rivet had to be right or that tail would have snapped off!
DOWN BUT NOT OUT. First it was riddled by heavy "flak" and bullets from enemy fighters over Sicily. Then it had to crash-land. Yet this tough Marauder was soon flying again!
AFTER UNCLE SAM CALLED. Here's what our aerial firepower did to the enemy at Castel Benito Airfield, Tripolitania. That strangely camouflaged Axis plane will never fly again-and the hangar roof leaks, to say the least!
AXIS BONEYARD. When we wreck 'em, they stay wrecked! This Axis scrap heap near Tripoli, piled high with junked enemy bombers and fighters, gives first-hand evidence of the hitting power of American planes.
U.S. ARMY
[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1943 - O - [illegible]
```

[← Air Fronts: Axis Tastes American Accuracy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/air-fronts-axis-tastes-american-accuracy-1943/) [Air Fronts (Aerial Destruction of Schweinfurt, A Sock in the Axis Belly, American Planes Can Take It) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/air-fronts-schweinfurt-ploesti-1943/)

## 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.