---
title: Could this be you? Don't travel unless your trip helps win the war
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/could-this-be-you-1945/
description: 'Four pinned notes show cartoon travellers, each with luggage and a stated reason: shopping, visiting relatives, a business contract.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Could this be you? Don't travel unless your trip helps win the war

[![Could this be you? Don't travel unless your trip helps win the war, 1945 US poster: Four pinned notes show cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/could-this-be-you-1945.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/could-this-be-you-1945.jpg)

# Could this be you? Don't travel unless your trip helps win the war

Four pinned notes show cartoon travellers, each with luggage and a stated reason: shopping, visiting relatives, a business contract, grandma missing the children. The headline asks the viewer to see themselves in them, and the base line says to travel only if the trip helps win the war. The appeal works through self-recognition and social shame rather than a threat.

## 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

```
Could this be you?
"IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND ANYTHING
IN THE LOCAL SHOPS."
"WE HAVEN'T SEEN BOB'S CHILDREN
SINCE WAY LAST FALL."
"BUT THIS CONTRACT IS VITAL."
"BUT GRANDMA MISSES US SO."
DON'T TRAVEL - UNLESS
YOUR TRIP HELPS WIN THE WAR
[imprint: U. S. OFFICE OF DEFENSE TRANSPORTATION]
[imprint: U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1945-O-640444]
```

[← Construction Workers can volunteer now for service in Army or Navy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/construction-workers-can-volunteer-now-1945/) [Cut Low Stumps →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cut-low-stumps-forest-service-1945/)

## 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)