---
title: Keep Your Eyes Open
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/keep-your-eyes-open-benny-1942/
description: A cartoon sentry lies against a pole, telephoning 'No, sir, everything is very quiet!' while German-uniformed soldiers crowd behind the bushes and a plane
section: Collection
---

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3. Keep Your Eyes Open

[![Keep Your Eyes Open, 1942 US poster: A cartoon sentry lies against a pole, telephoning 'No, sir, everything is very quiet!'](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/keep-your-eyes-open-benny-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/keep-your-eyes-open-benny-1942.jpg)

# Keep Your Eyes Open

A cartoon sentry lies against a pole, telephoning 'No, sir, everything is very quiet!' while German-uniformed soldiers crowd behind the bushes and a plane lands behind him. Headed 'Keep Your Eyes Open'. The fear-appeal is the unseen enemy; the sentry is the mocked bungler.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)

## Text on the object

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

```
NO, SIR,
EVERYTHING
IS VERY
QUIET!
[signature:] John Cullen Murphy
KEEP YOUR
EYES OPEN
REMEMBER YOU'RE ONE OF
America's Alertmen!
[imprint:] 6-13-42
THIS IS NO.10 IN A SERIES OF POSTERS ON
THE WRONG-DOINGS OF "BENNY THE BUNGLER". DON'T BE LIKE HIM!
[imprint:] PRODUCED BY
HEADQUARTERS
ANTIAIRCRAFT ARTILLERY COMMAND
EASTERN DEFENSE COMMAND
SANDERFORD JARMAN
MAJOR GENERAL, U.S. ARMY
COMMANDING
```

[← Keep the Home Fires Burning: More Production!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/keep-the-home-fires-burning-more-production-1942/) [Keep Your Head! Even Benny's Head Isn't Harder Than a Shell Fragment →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/keep-your-head-benny-1942/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [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)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)