---
title: '''He''s coming south. It''s fight, work or perish'' (Australian Department of Information)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hes-coming-south-australia-1942/
description: A caricatured Japanese soldier with a submachine gun strides across a globe from a rising-sun flag, his boot poised over Australia.
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Racialised caricature of a Japanese soldier stepping on Australia. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[!['He's coming south. It's fight, work or perish' (Australian Department of Information)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hes-coming-south-australia-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hes-coming-south-australia-1942.jpg)

# 'He's coming south. It's fight, work or perish' (Australian Department of Information)

A caricatured Japanese soldier with a submachine gun strides across a globe from a rising-sun flag, his boot poised over Australia. The headline 'He's coming south' and the slogan 'It's fight, work or perish' stage an imminent invasion and offer wartime effort as the only protection.

- **Date:** 1942
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Information
- **Region:** [Oceania](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=oceania)
- **Country:** [Australia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=australia)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Curtin Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=curtin-government)
- **Leader:** [John Curtin](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=john-curtin)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Home front](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=home-front), [Race and ethnicity](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=race-ethnicity)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Australian War Memorial](https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ARTV09225), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (AWM: 'Copyright expired - public domain'; Public Domain Mark) Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Information, 1942. Australian War Memorial, ARTV09225.

## Text on the object

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

```
HE'S COMING SOUTH
It's fight
work or perish
```

The caption bar 'AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL' and the accession number ARTV09225 at the foot are the museum's, not the poster's.

[← Don't Let That Shadow Touch Them: Buy War Bonds](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-let-that-shadow-touch-them-1942/) [He's Watching You →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hes-watching-you/)

## Using the same techniques

- [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/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (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/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)