---
title: Ouch! The Japs Don't Like Mosquitoes
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ouch-the-japs-dont-like-mosquitoes-1942/
description: 'A Navy recruiting poster sets a speech bubble beside a portrait of a decorated lieutenant and a PT boat at speed: ''Ouch!'
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Ethnic slur ('Japs') in the text and a small caricature of a fleeing Japanese figure. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Ouch! The Japs Don't Like Mosquitoes](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/ouch-the-japs-dont-like-mosquitoes-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/ouch-the-japs-dont-like-mosquitoes-1942.jpg)

# Ouch! The Japs Don't Like Mosquitoes

A Navy recruiting poster sets a speech bubble beside a portrait of a decorated lieutenant and a PT boat at speed: 'Ouch! The Japs don't like mosquitoes, especially the PT variety.' A small cartoon in the bubble shows a spectacled figure fleeing a mosquito in a cap. The slur and the insect metaphor stand in for the enemy, and the officer's portrait and ribbons lend the recruiting appeal his standing.

## Text on the object

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

```
Ouch! The Japs don't like mosquitoes —
especially the PT variety, with men like Lieutenant Bulkeley
at the wheel and a picked crew shooting "stingers" into the
sides of their warships and merchantmen.
If you like to be where the attack starts — there's a place for
you right now in the U. S. Navy. Go to your nearest Navy
Recruiting Station today!

No. 441
NRB—32682—6-13-42—10M.
```

'you' is italic in the original. A faint pencil annotation at the lower right is a library note, not printed text, and is not transcribed.

[← Murder in Cold Blood: Let's Force the Japs to Pay (TCOP Poster Studio)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/murder-in-cold-blood-tcop-1942/) ['Put the squeeze on the Japanese' (Australian industrial-effort poster, General Motors Holden) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/put-the-squeeze-on-the-japanese-australia-1942/)

## Using the same techniques

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- [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.
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (Dutch Republic · 1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (Great Britain · 1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The North Briton, No. XLV, 23 April 1763 (John Wilkes), opening page](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/north-briton-no-45-wilkes-1763/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Apr 23, 1763 · Name-calling)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Province of Massachusetts Bay · Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Hand-coloured engraving of bloodied dead and wounded colonists after soldiers fired on a crowd.
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (France · 1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [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)