---
title: Be alert! Be accurate!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/be-alert-be-accurate-1943/
description: 'Two-panel comic: the navigator Gooney asleep at his chart table in an aircraft, then standing sweating before four horned.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Be alert! Be accurate!

[![Be alert! Be accurate!, 1943 US poster: Two-panel comic](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/be-alert-be-accurate-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/be-alert-be-accurate-1943.jpg)

# Be alert! Be accurate!

Two-panel comic: the navigator Gooney asleep at his chart table in an aircraft, then standing sweating before four horned, scowling officers who are drawn as devils. The verse says he kept no log and so often missed his estimated time of arrival that the Air Force gave him away. The technique is a fear-appeal of professional disgrace, with the officers shown as demons.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

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

```
GOONEY WAS LAZY—JUST LOVED TO SLEEP
NO LOG OR RECORD DID HE KEEP
HE SO OFTEN MESSED UP HIS E. T. A.
THE AIR FORCE WAS WILLING TO GIVE HIM AWAY.
BE ALERT! BE ACCURATE!
[signature:] LANTZ
[imprint:] ☆ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O—500830
```

[← Be a Victory Farm Volunteer in the U.S. Crop Corps](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/be-a-victory-farm-volunteer-1943/) [Be ready for your war service: Join Red Cross Student Reserve →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/be-ready-for-your-war-service-red-cross-student-reserve-1943/)

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- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
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- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
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