Loose Lips Might Sink Ships
A sinking, burning ship fills the frame under a slogan warning that idle conversation causes naval losses. The claim collapses the many real causes of a sinking (U-boats, weather, mechanical failure) into one attributable cause the viewer can personally control by staying silent.
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. government home-front security campaign
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Security and surveillance, Home front, War and the military
- Event
- World War II
- Techniques
- Fear appealCard stacking
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), via Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 25, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, War and Conflict Number 830 (1941-1945).
Text on the object
LOOSE LIPS MIGHT Sink Ships THIS POSTER IS PUBLISHED BY THE HOUSE OF SEAGRAM AS PART OF ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE NATIONAL VICTORY EFFORT SEAGRAM-DISTILLERS CORP., N.Y.C.
The last line (bottom right corner, in very small print) is faint in this scan; read with reasonable but not full confidence.
