"If you only knew what it meant!!"
A cartoon soldier in helmet, dancing amid shell bursts and aircraft, holds a rifle with fixed bayonet in one hand and a letter in the other, shouting 'Yipee!! A letter!!!'. The caption addresses the writer at home. The technique is a weak fit for plain-folks: an ordinary soldier's delight in mail is used to urge people at home to write.
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
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front
- 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-143 (NAID 535656).
Text on the object
YIPEE!! A LETTER!!! "IF YOU ONLY KNEW WHAT IT MEANT!!" [signature] Alston
