Know Your Enemy: Japan, text card quoting a Japanese Army press officer on a 'hundred years war'
Near the end of the film, a title card in jagged brush-style lettering over a photograph of a packed crowd quotes: 'Japan is firmly determined to fight a hundred years war to crush the United States', credited to a named Japanese Army Press Section colonel, August 1942. A single enemy statement is staged as proof of unending war (fear-appeal); the card gives no context for the quotation.
- Date
- 1945
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. War Department, Information and Education Division, Army Service Forces (Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Film stills
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Truman Administration
- Leader
- Harry S. Truman
- Audience
- Own forces
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Event
- World War II
- Techniques
- Fear appeal
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Internet Archive item 'KnowYourEnemyJapan' (digitised copy of National Archives film 111.OF.10, Record Group 111, U.S. Army Signal Corps), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- U.S. federal work; Internet Archive Public Domain Mark 1.0
U.S. War Department, Army Service Forces, Information and Education Division; Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps (film credited to Frank Capra and Joris Ivens, uncredited on screen). Digitised by the U.S. National Archives, via the Internet Archive.
Text on the object
"JAPAN IS FIRMLY DETERMINED TO FIGHT A HUNDRED YEARS WAR TO CRUSH THE UNITED STATES." COLONEL HIDEO OHIRA, JAPANESE ARMY PRESS SECTION AUGUST 1942
The name on the card was read from a low-resolution frame (the second line of the attribution partly overlaps the crowd photograph); spelling 'OHIRA' is as read and has not been checked against another source.
