---
title: The Faster You Build 'Em The Sooner We'll Be Home
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/canada-the-faster-you-build-em-1943/
description: A photograph of British gunners beside an anti-tank gun, with an Italian ship burning behind them, sits under a column of ticked North African place names.
section: Collection
---

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3. The Faster You Build 'Em The Sooner We'll Be Home

[![The Faster You Build 'Em The Sooner We'll Be Home, 1943 Canada poster: A photograph of British gunners beside an anti-tank](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/canada-the-faster-you-build-em-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/canada-the-faster-you-build-em-1943.jpg)

# The Faster You Build 'Em The Sooner We'll Be Home

A photograph of British gunners beside an anti-tank gun, with an Italian ship burning behind them, sits under a column of ticked North African place names. The closing line, 'Shall brave men die because you faltered?', puts soldiers' lives on the viewer's work (fear-appeal), and the checklist shows only the advances (card-stacking).

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
THE FASTER
YOU BUILD 'EM
THE SOONER
WE'LL BE HOME

✓ EL ALAMEIN
✓ EL DABA
✓ MATRUH
✓ SIDI BARANI
✓ BARDIA
✓ TOBRUK
✓ DERNA
✓ BENGAZI
✓ SOLUK
✓ AGEDABIA
✓ EL AGHEILA
✓ EN NADILIA
✓ SIRTE
✓ MISURATA
✓ HOMS
✓ TRIPOLI

One of our guns goes into action while Italian ship burns after being bombed by the British on their push westward.

How soon do we get those GUNS?

SHALL BRAVE MEN DIE BECAUSE YOU FALTERED?

This message is issued by the Department of Munitions and Supply for Canada
```

[← Thanks for H.M.C.S. Regina](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/canada-thanks-for-hmcs-regina-1943/) ["We're Counting on You!" (letter from Flying Officer Alan Bell, R.C.A.F., to war-plant workers) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/canada-were-counting-on-you-bell-1943/)

## More propaganda examples that use 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)