Can You Ignore the Challenge of this Letter?
A smiling airman's portrait sits above a reproduced typed letter on Department of Munitions and Supply letterhead, headed 'To the Aircraft Workers of Canada' and signed Ralph P. Bell, with the question 'Can you ignore the challenge of this letter?'. The tell for testimonial is the signed letter from the Director-General; for fear-appeal, the claim that carelessness 'may cost some boy his life' beside bombers 'murdering defenseless women and children'; for name-calling, 'brutal German gangsters' who 'would cringe and cower like the cowards they are'.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Advertising and Sales Club of Toronto, distributed under the authority of the Director-General of Aircraft Production (Ralph P. Bell, Department of Munitions and Supply)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- Canada
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Mackenzie King Government
- Leader
- William Lyon Mackenzie King
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- War and the military, Labor, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- 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 Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Held by NARA, Unrestricted; hosted by owner decision (Canadian wartime poster, no rights statement)
Advertising and Sales Club of Toronto / Director-General of Aircraft Production (Canada), National Archives and Records Administration, 44-PF-588.
Text on the object
"with YOUR help... he may be a BISHOP or a BARKER" says Ralph P. Bell Director-General of Aircraft Production DEPARTMENT OF MUNITIONS AND SUPPLY OTTAWA, CANADA To the Aircraft Workers of Canada: Yours is a privilege enjoyed by comparatively few in this Titanic struggle for the preservation of the right to live as free men and women. To be actually working with your own hands in the creation of a training plane which may produce for Canada and the Empire another Bishop, or a Barker, or a McLaren! Perhaps to have a part in the construction of a Hurricane which will some day play a decisive role in the great air battle over Britain. Or a Bolingbroke which may wing its way across the Channel to blast successfully a German invasion port on the French Coast. Or it may be you're on a Hampden, a bomb from which may some day devastate Hitler's very headquarters in Berlin itself! If you were sure this one you're working on now were that "ship", you'd take particular pride to see that every last detail was perfect, wouldn't you? Maybe it is! A bit of carelessness, a sloppy fit, some little thing not just right, even on a trainer, may cost some boy his life. A little more care on your part and that same lad may live to win the Victoria Cross! You have been singled out to participate in such responsibility. What an Honour! At the very time that I write this personal message to you men and women in the aircraft plants of Canada, German bombers are blasting British homes and murdering defenseless women and children. Yet, sufficient planes and pilots from Canada to blockade the skies over Berlin, and these brutal German gangsters would cringe and cower like the cowards they are. WHEN? IT'S UP TO YOU! WHAT A CHALLENGE! Yours for greater effort, Ralph P. Bell Director-General of Aircraft Production CAN YOU IGNORE THE CHALLENGE OF THIS LETTER? [imprint:] Prepared and published under the auspices of the Advertising and Sales Club of Toronto and distributed under the authority of the Director-General of Aircraft Production GIFT OF CENTRAL OUTDOOR ADVERTISING CO.
