---
title: Japanese leaflet in English, "Don't wait to die" (Philippines, 1942)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-leaflet-dont-wait-to-die-philippines-1942/
description: English-language leaflet with a hand-lettered headline, 'Don't wait to die', beside a pencil-style drawing of a smiling woman with waved hair, and a text…
section: Collection
---

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

[![Japanese leaflet in English, "Don't wait to die" (Philippines, 1942)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/japanese-leaflet-dont-wait-to-die-philippines-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/japanese-leaflet-dont-wait-to-die-philippines-1942.jpg)

# Japanese leaflet in English, "Don't wait to die" (Philippines, 1942)

English-language leaflet with a hand-lettered headline, 'Don't wait to die', beside a pencil-style drawing of a smiling woman with waved hair, and a text in the first person that begins 'Before the bombs fall' and 'Before the terror comes'. The headline and the two 'before' lines stage imminent death from bombing (fear appeal), and the text offers one remedy, intimacy with the speaker while 'there is still a time and place'; no alternative is discussed.

- **Date:** 1942
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Empire of Japan (Japanese military psychological-warfare leaflet, Battle of the Philippines; no issuer named on the leaflet)
- **Region:** [East Asia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=east-asia)
- **Country:** [Empire of Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=empire-of-japan)
- **Medium:** [Leaflet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=leaflet)
- **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:** [Enemy forces](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=enemy-forces)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Theme:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **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 (source cited there: U.S. Army Center of Military History, The Fall of the Philippines, ch. XXI)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_Battle_of_the_Philippines_propaganda_leaflet_1.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (Commons tags PD-Japan-oldphoto, PD-1996; anonymous Japanese wartime leaflet, 1942) Japanese wartime propaganda leaflet, Battle of the Philippines, 1942; via Wikimedia Commons

## Text on the object

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

```
Don't wait to die

Before the bombs fall, let me
take your hand and kiss your
gentle cheeks and murmur ...

Before the terror comes, let me
walk beside you in garden deep
in petalled sleep

Let me, while there is still a
time and place.  Feel soft
against me and rest . . rest your
warm hand on my breast ...
```

Read from a 500 px rendering of the 488 px original; the small halftone text is faint in places but legible, and the line breaks follow the printed lines. The headline has no visible end punctuation in the image (the Commons caption adds an exclamation mark).

[← He's Watching You](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hes-watching-you/) [Loose Lips Might Sink Ships →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/loose-lips-might-sink-ships/)

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- [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/) (Dutch Republic · 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/) (Holy Roman Empire · 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/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · 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/) (Qing China · 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/) (United Kingdom · 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/) (Venezuela · 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/) (Qing China · 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/) (Spain · 1900 · Fear appeal)