---
title: '''Denryoku wa senryoku!'' (Electric Power Is Military Power!) home-front poster'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/electric-power-is-military-power-poster-1944/
description: 'Black-and-white poster: a child in silhouette points at drawings of a fighter aircraft and a tank, with the claim that if every home in Japan turns off…'
section: Collection
---

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

[!['Denryoku wa senryoku!' (Electric Power Is Military Power!) home-front poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/electric-power-is-military-power-poster-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/electric-power-is-military-power-poster-1944.jpg)

# 'Denryoku wa senryoku!' (Electric Power Is Military Power!) home-front poster

Black-and-white poster: a child in silhouette points at drawings of a fighter aircraft and a tank, with the claim that if every home in Japan turns off its lights at midnight the power saved equals that needed for hundreds of aircraft and thousands of tanks. The figures come with no source, period or unit, so a small household habit is tied to a large war-production number the viewer cannot check (card-stacking: missing denominator).

- **Date:** 1944
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Unnamed issuer (wartime Japanese home-front electricity-saving campaign poster; no sponsor printed on the visible part)
- **Region:** [East Asia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=east-asia)
- **Country:** [Empire of Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=empire-of-japan)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [Mixed](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=mixed)
- **Regime:** [Showa Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=showa-japan)
- **Leader:** [Hideki Tojo](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=hideki-tojo)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Themes:** [Home front](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=home-front), [Science and technology](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=science-technology), [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)
- **Regime:** [Empire of Japan, 1937 to 1945](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/showa-japan/)
- **Leader:** [Hideki Tōjō](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/showa-japan/#hideki-tojo)
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Electric_Power_is_Military_Power.JPG), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (Commons tag PD-Japan-oldphoto; also PD in the US) Unknown issuer, 1944; scan by Abasaa via Wikimedia Commons, from Asahi Shimbun's 'Sensō to shomin 1940-1949' vol. 3

## Text on the object

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

```
電力は戰力!

一機でも!
一艦でも!
一發でも!
多くつくるには
たくさんの電力が必要です

日本中の家庭が
深夜中
電燈を消すと

飛行機 三〇〇台分
戰車 三〇〇〇台分
の電力が節約される

電力を
節約しませう!

私タチノ手デ忘レズニ
イラナイ電燈ヲ
消サウ
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
Electric power is military power!

Even one aircraft! Even one warship! Even one round!
To make many, a great deal of electric power is needed.

If every home in Japan turns off its electric lights in the middle of the night,

the electric power for 300 aircraft and 3,000 tanks
will be saved.

Let's save electric power!

With our own hands, without forgetting,
let's switch off the lights we do not need.
```

Read from the 960 px image. The small captions beside the aircraft and tank drawings ('飛行機 三〇〇台分', '戰車 三〇〇〇台分') and the final word of the large slogan (printed as 'しませ/う!') are read at low resolution; the sentence 'の電力が節約される' follows the tank line. The handwritten-style note on the house at lower right is in katakana. Translation is a literal machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.

[← Catania, Sicily: reading Allied news under U.S. and British flags, 1943](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/catania-allied-news-display-1943/) [Still from "Japanse propaganda tentoonstelling", Japanese military propaganda film shot in Java (c. 1944) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-propaganda-film-exhibition-java-1944/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Bayeux Tapestry, scene 23: UBI HAROLD SACRAMENTVM FECIT VVILLELMO DVCI](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bayeux-tapestry-harold-oath-to-william-1070/) (1070 · Transfer, Card stacking)
- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [La paz según el Perú – La paz según los chilenos (Peace According to Peru, Peace According to the Chileans)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/la-paz-segun-el-peru-el-banquillo-1880/) (Jun 12, 1880 · Card stacking)
- [Remember the Maine! And Don't Forget the Starving Cubans! (Judge)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/remember-the-maine-starving-cubans-judge-1898/) (May 7, 1898 · Card stacking)
- ["A Sacrifice to Aguinaldo's Ambition" (commercial stereograph, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sacrifice-to-aguinaldos-ambition-1899/) (1899 · Card stacking, Name-calling). Content note: Photograph of two dead Filipino soldiers.
- ["England and the War in South Africa" (Der wahre Jacob, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/war-and-capitalism-der-wahre-jacob-1899/) (Dec 5, 1899 · Card stacking, Scapegoating)
- ["Kill Every One Over Ten" (New York Evening Journal, 1902)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kill-every-one-over-ten-1902/) (May 5, 1902 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Blindfolded Filipino children before a firing squad.