---
title: Bits of Careless Talk Are Pieced Together by the Enemy
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bits-careless-talk-pieced-together-1943/
description: Poster showing a hand in a green sleeve wearing a swastika ring, placing a jigsaw piece reading 'Convoy sails for England tonight'; headline 'Bits of…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Swastika-bearing enemy imagery in a puzzle design, shown as printed. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Bits of Careless Talk Are Pieced Together by the Enemy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/bits-careless-talk-pieced-together-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/bits-careless-talk-pieced-together-1943.jpg)

# Bits of Careless Talk Are Pieced Together by the Enemy

Poster showing a hand in a green sleeve wearing a swastika ring, placing a jigsaw piece reading 'Convoy sails for England tonight'; headline 'Bits of careless talk are pieced together by the enemy'. Fear-appeal: harmless remarks are shown assembling into usable intelligence. Transfer: the swastika ring marks the hand as the enemy's.

## Text on the object

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

```
BITS OF CARELESS TALK
ARE PIECED TOGETHER BY THE ENEMY

Convoy sails for England tonight
```

Words on the puzzle pieces are read in the order 'Convoy sails for / England / tonight'.

[← BCRA forged Vichy 30c Pétain-Laval stamp, sheet of twenty (London, 1942-44)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bcra-petain-laval-forged-30c-stamp-1943/) [China Fights On →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/china-fights-on-united-china-relief-1943/)

## Using the same techniques

- [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.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [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.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)