Careless Words Can Liquidate Ships -- Better Button up Those Blabber-Lips
Security poster from an Army airfield: a ship splits in two inside a red-and-black explosion, above a rhyming warning in script and block type and a row of lips sealed with crossed buttoned straps. The tell is the fear-appeal that speech alone sinks ships, paired with a slogan of order to keep quiet.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Pendleton Field, Oregon (art: Pvt. Karl E. Hoefle)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Own forces
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- War and the military, Security and surveillance
- 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)
Pendleton Field, Oregon. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-157 (NAID 513603).
Text on the object
Careless Words Can Liquidate Ships --Better Button up Those Blabber-Lips PENDLETON FIELD, OREGON [signature:] Pvt. Karl E. Hoefle
