Content note: Japanese wartime leaflet for Australian troops with a suggestive scene and a sexual-rivalry caricature, shown as issued. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Japanese leaflet in English, "Australia Screams" (Pacific, c. 1942)
Colour cartoon leaflet headed 'AUSTRALIA SCREAMS'. An Australian soldier in a slouch hat, bandaged and holding a bayonet, stands on a map piece labelled NEW GUINEA and asks what the scream was; on the map piece AUSTRALIA a U.S. officer carries a woman and tells her to calm down, 'He'll be on the next casualty list. No worry'. The tell: it casts the American, not the enemy, as the Australian's rival at home and treats his death as a convenience, in a cartoon with no issuer named.
Propaganda techniques used in this leaflet
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Empire of Japan (Japanese military psychological-warfare leaflet; no issuer named on the leaflet)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Theme, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- East Asia
- Country
- Empire of Japan
- Medium
- Leaflet
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Showa Japan
- Leader
- Hideki Tojo
- Audience
- Enemy forces
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Theme
- War and the military
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Hideki Tōjō
- Source
- Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved October 11, 2026
- Rights
- Openly licensed (CC BY 2.0, per Wikimedia Commons; Marine Corps Archives and Special Collections)
Japanese propaganda, circa 1942, Propaganda Collection (COLL/3541), Marine Corps Archives and Special Collections, Quantico, via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Text on the object
Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked
AUSTRALIA SCREAMS The Aussie: "What was that scream. Something up?" The Yank: "Sh..sh.. Quiet, girlie. Calm yourself He'll be on the next casualty list. No worry" NEW GUINEA AUSTRALIA
Read from the 1280 px rendering; the hand lettering is clear. Punctuation follows the print, including the missing full stop after 'yourself'.
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