"Destination Berlin!!"
A pencil cartoon shows a fighter plane marked '99th Pursuit Squadron' climbing out of clouds with a second fighter behind it, while a damaged aircraft falls trailing smoke and a ship burns on the sea below. The caption names Berlin as the squadron's goal. The technique is a weak fit for glittering-generalities: the caption is a single aspirational slogan of victory attached to a named Black fighter unit.
Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Office of War Information (cartoon artwork; artist Charles Henry Alston)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- War and the military, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives, RG 208, Artworks and Mockups for War Effort Cartoons, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Office of War Information. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 208, 208-COM-38 (NAID 535608).
Text on the object
"DESTINATION BERLIN!!" [on the aircraft] 99th PURSUIT SQUADRON [signature] Alston OWI
