---
title: 'Crack for Victory: Your palm kernels when cracked help to feed the Empire''s fighting men'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/crack-for-victory-palm-kernels-1939/
description: Four painted panels run from a man climbing an oil palm, to women and a child sorting kernels, to a white-coated factory worker beside rolling slabs of…
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Colonial-era painted depiction of West African villagers at work, in period style. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Crack for Victory: Your palm kernels when cracked help to feed the Empire's fighting men](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/crack-for-victory-palm-kernels-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/crack-for-victory-palm-kernels-1939.jpg)

# Crack for Victory: Your palm kernels when cracked help to feed the Empire's fighting men

Four painted panels run from a man climbing an oil palm, to women and a child sorting kernels, to a white-coated factory worker beside rolling slabs of fat, to three British soldiers eating from a ration tin. The captions, 'Your palm kernels when cracked' and 'Help to feed the Empire's fighting men', sit over the large red slogan 'Crack for Victory': the abstract word 'victory' stands in for the task of cracking kernels, and the soldiers' panel lends the village work the standing of the front line.

## Text on the object

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

```
YOUR PALM KERNELS WHEN CRACKED

HELP TO FEED THE EMPIRE'S FIGHTING MEN

CRACK FOR VICTORY

G.P.D./365/37/14
[artist's signature at lower right of the soldiers' panel, partly legible]
```

Printing code 'G.P.D./365/37/14' is at the lower left of the sheet. The artist's signature at the lower right of the soldiers' panel is only partly legible in the committed image; IWM gives the artist as Nunney.

[← 'Convoy your country to victory: buy Defence Bonds' (British National Savings poster)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/convoy-your-country-to-victory-defence-bonds-1939/) ['Dig for Victory' (British Ministry of Agriculture poster, child with spade) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dig-for-victory-child-poster-1939/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Gypsum alabaster slab inscribed in cuneiform, from Nimrud (Kalhu), reign of Ashurnasirpal II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/nimrud-slab-ashurnasirpal-ii-inscription-883bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Bronze sestertius of Trajan, reverse S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI, S C, the emperor on horseback riding down an enemy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sestertius-trajan-optimo-principi-0103/) (Roman Empire · 0103 · Testimonial, Glittering generalities)
- [Gold solidus of Constantine I, reverse RESTITVTORI LIBERTATIS](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/solidus-constantine-i-restitutori-libertatis-0313/) (Roman Empire · 0313 · Glittering generalities)
- [Gold solidus of Justinian I, reverse VICTORIA AVGGG with Victory holding a Christogram staff](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/solidus-justinian-i-victoria-avggg-0538/) (Byzantine Empire · 0538 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I (Royal Museums Greenwich version), oil on panel](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/armada-portrait-elizabeth-i-greenwich-1588/) (England · 1588 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Medal of Elizabeth I: portrait in a ruff, reverse an ark on stormy waves with SAEVAS TRANQVILLA PER VNDAS (18th-century aftercast of a 1588 model)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/elizabeth-i-ark-medal-aftercast-1588/) (England · 1588 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Frontispiece to Eikon Basilike, The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings (Hollar, 1649)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eikon-basilike-frontispiece-hollar-1649/) (Dutch Republic · 1649 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)