---
title: 'Don''t talk about troop movements: If you tell where they''re going... They may never get there'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-talk-about-troop-movements-1943/
description: A large dark photo-montage of a soldier in helmet and pack climbing into a train car, with a line of soldiers waiting on the platform at lower right.
section: Collection
---

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3. Don't talk about troop movements: If you tell where they're going...

[![Don't talk about troop movements: If you tell where they're going... They may never get there, 1943 US poster: A large dark](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dont-talk-about-troop-movements-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dont-talk-about-troop-movements-1943.jpg)

# Don't talk about troop movements: If you tell where they're going... They may never get there

A large dark photo-montage of a soldier in helmet and pack climbing into a train car, with a line of soldiers waiting on the platform at lower right. Yellow text reads 'If you tell where they're going... They may never get there', with 'Don't talk about troop movements' below. The fear-appeal links a spoken detail directly to the soldiers' deaths.

## 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

```
If you tell
where they're going...
They may
never get there

DON'T TALK ABOUT TROOP MOVEMENTS

[imprint:] OWI Poster No. 54. Additional copies may be obtained upon request from the Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information, Washington, D.C.
[imprint:] U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943-O-[illegible]
```

[← Don't smoke in bed!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-smoke-in-bed-1943/) [Dr. Charles Hawkins - Inventor, Research Specialist →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dr-charles-hawkins-inventor-research-specialist-alston-1943/)

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- [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.
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