---
title: '''The Spectre Commands'' (Japanese leaflet to Australian troops)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-leaflet-specter-commands-australia-1945/
description: A colour leaflet headed 'THE SPECTRE COMMANDS'. A hooded spectre in a dark cloak, holding a U.S. flag on a pole, points down at a prostrate figure…
section: Collection
---

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

[!['The Spectre Commands' (Japanese leaflet to Australian troops)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/japanese-leaflet-specter-commands-australia-1945.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/japanese-leaflet-specter-commands-australia-1945.jpg)

# 'The Spectre Commands' (Japanese leaflet to Australian troops)

A colour leaflet headed 'THE SPECTRE COMMANDS'. A hooded spectre in a dark cloak, holding a U.S. flag on a pole, points down at a prostrate figure labelled AUSTRALIA, whose dish and spoon lie beside him. Red overprinted text puts words in Roosevelt's mouth about Americans eating Australians out of their homes and fighting 'to the last Australian'. The tell is the attribution of invented speech to a named U.S. leader to turn Australian soldiers against their ally.

## Text on the object

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

```
THE SPECTRE COMMANDS
Roosevelt:
Thou shalt go, Americans,
and eat the Australians
out of their Homes.
If necessary
the Americans
will fight the last
Australian.
AUSTRALIA
```

Red overprinted text read from a 252 x 352 px image; the wording of the middle lines is uncertain and may differ in places from the printed original.

[← 'American Officers and Men' (Japanese leaflet on the death of President Roosevelt, Okinawa)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-leaflet-roosevelt-death-okinawa-1945/) [Know Your Enemy: Japan, text card quoting a Japanese Army press officer on a 'hundred years war' →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/know-your-enemy-japan-hundred-years-war-card-1945/)

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