Content note: Caricatured Japanese officer in a vise with pseudo-Japanese speech marks. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Put the Squeeze on the Japanese: Beat Your Promise
A worker in an 'Increased Production' vest, labelled 'You and I', clamps a caricatured Japanese officer in a vise, his speech rendered as pseudo-Japanese brush marks, while a dagger inscribed 'Remember Pearl Harbor!' lies in the foreground. The enemy is drawn with bucktoothed, bespectacled exaggeration and the worker is the ordinary reader.
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- RCA Manufacturing Company, Inc. ('Beat Your Promise' production series; 'RCA' lettered on the worker's wrist)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Themes
- Home front, Labor, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- World War II
- Techniques
- Name-calling
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- UNT Digital Library, University of North Texas Libraries (World War II Posters collection), ark:/67531/metadc161, retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published without copyright notice; checked on scan)
UNT Libraries, UNT Digital Library, World War II Posters (metadc161). Rights basis: no copyright notice on scan; marks: 'Form 155360' and 'Printed in U. S. A.'
Text on the object
PUT THE SQUEEZE ON THE JAPANESE YOU AND I INCREASED PRODUCTION RCA REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR! BEAT YOUR PROMISE Form 155360 Printed in U. S. A.
Brush-stroke characters beside the officer's shouted speech [illegible pseudo-Japanese marks]. A handwritten number ('3136') appears at lower left.
