---
title: Metal at the Fighting Front
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/metal-at-the-fighting-front-1943/
description: Photo-montage poster from the U.S. Army with five captioned photographs of North Africa, Sicily and the Aleutians.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Metal at the Fighting Front

[![Metal at the Fighting Front, 1943 US poster: Photo-montage poster from the U.S. Army with five captioned photographs of North](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/metal-at-the-fighting-front-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/metal-at-the-fighting-front-1943.jpg)

# Metal at the Fighting Front

Photo-montage poster from the U.S. Army with five captioned photographs of North Africa, Sicily and the Aleutians. Each caption gives a metal tonnage for the weapon or boat shown, for example 25,652 pounds of nonferrous metals per Higgins boat, and ties it to the supply of metals from mines and smelters. The technique is card-stacking: selected figures and scenes present metal as the limiting factor.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Text on the object

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

```
METAL at the Fighting Front
FOXHOLE EXCHANGE. A soldier calmly operates a switchboard near the beach during the recent fighting in North Africa—with helmet and rifle handy! Over nine million pounds of copper monthly go into wire that links our fighting fronts.
SICILIAN INVASION STARTS! Assault troops board Higgins boats massed in a North African Port for the attack on Sicily. Hundreds of these boats were used in the operation, each requiring 25,652 pounds of nonferrous metals. We need more of them, too!
THE YANKS LAND! Men and machines pour ashore on Sicily under fire (note shell splash behind landing barge). Without the barges, jeeps, trailers, tanks, guns and ammunition made with your metals such invasions could not be undertaken.
ALEUTIAN AIR ALERT! As the warning comes, soldiers on Kodiak Island rush to their guns—50 calibre machine gun in background, 37 mm. anti-aircraft gun in front. It takes 562 lbs. of nonferrous metals to make two guns like these, and many pounds more for ammunition.
FIGHTING FRENCH near Algiers learn from American gunners how to shoot our famous 50 calibre machine guns. Those three guns you see here spit 402 lbs. of copper, zinc and lead in one minute. It's the job of our mines and smelters to keep 'em shooting!
U. S. ARMY OFFICIAL POSTER
[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1943 O - 551474]
```

[← A message for you... from 1953](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/message-for-you-from-1953-1943/) [Milk and Money: Vital for victory! Put part of every milk check in war bonds →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/milk-and-money-vital-for-victory-war-bonds-1943/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Behistun (Bisotun) rock relief and trilingual inscription of Darius I: the king, two attendants and the bound rebel leaders beneath the winged figure of Ahuramazda](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/behistun-relief-darius-and-rebels-521bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Shows bound captives before the king, and the inscription records the mutilation and public execution of rebel leaders, as the king's own account.
- [Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam: the king in relief beside his inscription DNa, c. 490 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dna-inscription-darius-i-naqsh-e-rustam-490bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Testimonial, Card stacking)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Persepolis, Apadana staircase relief: a figure with an animal from a procession of delegations, early fifth century BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/persepolis-apadana-delegate-relief-500bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Manufactured consensus)
- [Alabaster relief, Assyrian troops storming a citadel, from Nineveh (reign of Sennacherib)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/relief-sennacherib-storming-citadel-nineveh-704bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Card stacking). Content note: An Assyrian palace relief of troops storming a fortified city, with a file of figures below; Assyrian royal reliefs and texts record killing, mutilation and deportation, shown as carved, with the historical context and scholarly dispute on the regime page.
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Silver denarius of Vespasian, reverse IVDAEA with a trophy of arms and a seated mourning woman](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/denarius-vespasian-judaea-capta-0070/) (Roman Empire · 0070 · Card stacking). Content note: A Roman victory coin showing a mourning female figure as the personification of the conquered province of Judaea after the Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt; shown as struck, with the historical context on the regime page.