---
title: '''American Officers and Men'' (Japanese leaflet on the death of President Roosevelt, Okinawa)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-leaflet-roosevelt-death-okinawa-1945/
description: A hand-lettered English leaflet addressed 'American Officers and Men', photographed in its frame with a museum label.
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Battlefield leaflet exploiting the death of a head of state and threatening suicide attacks. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[!['American Officers and Men' (Japanese leaflet on the death of President Roosevelt, Okinawa)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/japanese-leaflet-roosevelt-death-okinawa-1945.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/japanese-leaflet-roosevelt-death-okinawa-1945.jpg)

# 'American Officers and Men' (Japanese leaflet on the death of President Roosevelt, Okinawa)

A hand-lettered English leaflet addressed 'American Officers and Men', photographed in its frame with a museum label. It opens with regret at President Roosevelt's death, then claims 70% of U.S. carriers and 73% of battleships are sunk or damaged with 150,000 casualties, and says the 'special attack corps will sink your vessels to the last destroyer'. The tell is the sequence of claimed losses followed by a stated future attack on the reader's own ships.

## Text on the object

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

```
American Officers and Men
We must express our deep regret over the death of President Roosevelt. The "American Tragedy" is now raised here at Okinawa with his death. You must have seen 70% of your CV's and 73% of your B's sunk or be damaged causing 150,000 casualties. Not only the late President but anyone else would die in the excess of worry to hear such an annihilative damage. The dreadful loss that led your late leader to death will make you orphans on this island. The Japanese special attack corps will sink your vessels to the last destroyer. You will witness it realized in the near future.
```

Hand-lettered text read from a 640 x 480 photograph; the abbreviation after '73% of your' could be 'B's' or 'BB's'. The museum label below the leaflet ('Japanese propaganda leaflet found by troops of the 7th Infantry Division on Okinawa, 23 April 1945 ... ten days after the death of President Roosevelt.') is not part of the leaflet and is not transcribed.

[← Ik val aan... volgt mij (I attack... follow me)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ik-val-aan-volgt-mij-1945/) ['The Spectre Commands' (Japanese leaflet to Australian troops) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-leaflet-specter-commands-australia-1945/)

## 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/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [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)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)
- [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)