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
- Date
- 1943
- 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-321 (NAID 513768).
Text on the object
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]
