---
title: '''Let ''em all come: Home Defence Battalions, men 41-55'' (British Army recruiting poster)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/let-em-all-come-home-defence-battalions-1939/
description: A moustached older soldier in a steel helmet, rifle on his shoulder, lights his pipe with calm unconcern while an airfield stands behind him.
section: Collection
---

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

[!['Let 'em all come: Home Defence Battalions, men 41-55' (British Army recruiting poster)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/let-em-all-come-home-defence-battalions-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/let-em-all-come-home-defence-battalions-1939.jpg)

# 'Let 'em all come: Home Defence Battalions, men 41-55' (British Army recruiting poster)

A moustached older soldier in a steel helmet, rifle on his shoulder, lights his pipe with calm unconcern while an airfield stands behind him. The quoted slogan 'Let 'em all come' casts the 41-55 age group as an unflappable ordinary man, the homely pipe doing the persuading.

## Text on the object

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

```
"Let 'em all come"
MEN 41-55
HOME DEFENCE BATTALIONS
Apply at any Army Recruiting Centre Now
[illegible: small print at the lower right]
```

Read from the committed image.

[← 打死汪精衛，打死漢奸們！ (Beat Wang Jingwei to death, beat the traitors to death!), Kangweijun Pictorial vol. 1 no. 3](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kill-wang-jingwei-kangweijun-pictorial-1939/) [Suomen armeijan sotilaat! (Soldiers of the Finnish Army!): Soviet leaflet signed by named Finnish prisoners →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/soviet-leaflet-suomen-armeijan-sotilaat-1939/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Trois Tetes sous l'meme bonnet (three heads under the same cap)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/trois-tetes-sous-le-meme-bonnet-1789/) (France · 1789 · Plain folks, Glittering generalities)
- ['Frohe Weihnachten und glückliches Neujahr' Austro-Hungarian Christmas postcard (1914)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/frohe-weihnachten-kriegsjahr-postcard-1914/) (Austria Hungary · 1914 · Plain folks)
- ['Get a move on old man!' (Harry J. Weston, Sydney)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/australia-get-a-move-on-1915/) (Australia · 1915 · Plain folks)
- [Бо війна війною (For War Is War), Sich Riflemen postcard series II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kurylas-bo-viina-viinoiu-sich-riflemen-postcard-1917/) (Austria Hungary · 1917 · Plain folks)
- ["Mora Dravca vsahniti" plebiscite postcard no. 9 (The Drava Must Dry Up)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/mora-dravca-vsahniti-plebiscite-postcard-1920/) (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes · 1920 · Plain folks)
- [Город — мануфактуру, деревня — хлеб (Town: Manufactured Goods; Village: Bread)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kustodiev-city-manufactures-village-bread-1925/) (Soviet Union · 1925 · Plain folks)
- [l'Unità, January 1928: 'Resistere alla seconda ondata di riduzione dei salari! SCIOPERATE!' (front page)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/l-unita-sciopero-salari-1928/) (Fascist Italy · Jan 1928 · Plain folks, Name-calling). Content note: Clandestine Communist front page whose strike slogan uses a vulgar word ('A salario di merda, lavoro di merda!'), shown as printed.
- [Gandhi spins while addressing a crowd (1930)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gandhi-spinning-1930/) (British India · 1930 · Plain folks, Transfer)