---
title: Radius of action is navigator's problem
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radius-of-action-is-navigators-problem-1943/
description: Comic scene of a crew on an inflatable raft in open sea glaring and shouting at the navigator, Gooney, who sits sweating with daggers flying toward him.
section: Collection
---

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3. Radius of action is navigator's problem

[![Radius of action is navigator's problem, 1943 US poster: Comic scene of a crew on an inflatable raft in open sea glaring](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/radius-of-action-is-navigators-problem-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/radius-of-action-is-navigators-problem-1943.jpg)

# Radius of action is navigator's problem

Comic scene of a crew on an inflatable raft in open sea glaring and shouting at the navigator, Gooney, who sits sweating with daggers flying toward him. A verse says his dead reckoning let the fuel run out. The technique is a fear-appeal with social blame: running out of fuel is shown as ocean all around and an angry crew.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

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

```
“NAVIGATOR GOONEY” THOUGHT HE KNEW HIS D. R.
WAS SURE THAT HE WOULD NEVER GO TOO FAR
BUT ALAS FOR GOONEY WHEN THE FUEL RAN OUT
THERE WAS NOTHING BUT OCEAN ROUNDABOUT.
RADIUS OF ACTION IS NAVIGATOR’S PROBLEM
[signature:] LANTZ
[imprint:] ☆ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O—500830
```

[← Radio instruction course, chart no. 3: fundamentals of the vacuum tube](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radio-instruction-course-chart-3-1943/) [Rationing is sharing with our fighters and neighbors →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/rationing-is-sharing-with-our-fighters-and-neighbors-opa-1943/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [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.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [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)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)