---
title: 'Matchbox label, Japanese wartime propaganda in Malay: "Tentoe dapat kemenangan" (Victory will surely be won), No. 3 (c. 1943)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-java-propaganda-matchbox-1943/
description: A cardboard matchbox printed in Malay with Japanese wartime propaganda.
section: Collection
---

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

[![Matchbox label, Japanese wartime propaganda in Malay: "Tentoe dapat kemenangan" (Victory will surely be won), No. 3 (c. 1943)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/japanese-java-propaganda-matchbox-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/japanese-java-propaganda-matchbox-1943.jpg)

# Matchbox label, Japanese wartime propaganda in Malay: "Tentoe dapat kemenangan" (Victory will surely be won), No. 3 (c. 1943)

A cardboard matchbox printed in Malay with Japanese wartime propaganda. Caricatured figures, read by the museum as an American (marked by trousers) and a British man (marked by a Union Jack waistcoat), tumble away from a Japanese bomb marked with the character for victory, over a globe ringed with factories, under the slogan "Tentoe dapat kemenangan".

- **Date:** 1943
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Japanese propaganda department in the occupied Dutch East Indies (per the museum description; printer or maker not identified)
- **Region:** [Southeast Asia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=southeast-asia)
- **Country:** [Empire of Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=empire-of-japan)
- **Medium:** [Object](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=object)
- **Issuer type:** [Military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=military)
- **Regime:** [Showa Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=showa-japan)
- **Leader:** [Hideki Tojo](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=hideki-tojo)
- **Audience:** [Foreign public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=foreign-public)
- **Purpose:** [Reassure](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=reassure)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Empire and colonialism](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=empire-colonialism)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)
- **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:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (photograph by Tropenmuseum, part of the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:COLLECTIE_TROPENMUSEUM_Luciferdoos_met_propaganda-opschrift_van_de_Japanners_TMnr_3934-56a.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** CC BY-SA 3.0 (photograph, Tropenmuseum / Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, via Wikimedia Commons) Tropenmuseum, part of the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, matchbox with propaganda inscription of the Japanese, TM-3934-56a, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

## Text on the object

Original (Malay (old spelling) and Japanese) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
TENTOE DAPAT KEMENANGAN
HIMPOENLAH
KERTAS APIAPI
NO. 3
勝
```

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

```
Victory will surely be won
Collect the
"kertas apiapi" (matchbox papers, sense inferred)
No. 3
Victory (the character 勝, kachi/sho)
```

Read from the 500-pixel image; the word DAPAT is partly hidden by the figures and is reconstructed from the slogan's sense, and the Japanese character on the shell may be preceded by a further partly hidden character. The translation is machine-made and not checked by a fluent reader of Malay.

[← Himmler-head forgery of the 6-pfennig Deutsches Reich stamp](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/himmler-stamp-forgery-1943/) [Japanese leaflet for India in Hindi and Bengali: Allied leaders pull an Indian (1943) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-leaflet-india-tug-of-war-1943/)

## Using the same techniques

- [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)
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [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)
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [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)
- [Exit Liberté a la Francois! or Buonaparte closing the Farce of Egalité, at St. Cloud (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/exit-liberte-buonaparte-gillray-1799/) (Nov 21, 1799 · Name-calling)
- [Van Moscouw tot Elba moest ik wyken (From Moscow to Elba I had to give way), Napoleon caricature by Wijnand Esser](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/van-moscouw-tot-elba-napoleon-esser-1814/) (1814 · Name-calling)