---
title: Ringed with menace! Bar the gates with 'Beauforts' (Australian aircraft-production poster)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ringed-with-menace-beauforts-1943/
description: A map of Australia, drawn with farms, mines, camels and cricket, sits inside a dark ring of warships flying the Japanese naval flag, with aircraft above…
section: Collection
---

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

[![Ringed with menace! Bar the gates with 'Beauforts' (Australian aircraft-production poster)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/ringed-with-menace-beauforts-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/ringed-with-menace-beauforts-1943.jpg)

# Ringed with menace! Bar the gates with 'Beauforts' (Australian aircraft-production poster)

A map of Australia, drawn with farms, mines, camels and cricket, sits inside a dark ring of warships flying the Japanese naval flag, with aircraft above and Japanese-held islands to the north. The slogan 'Bar the Gates with Beauforts' offers aircraft output as the defence; the tell is the encirclement graphic, which stages imminent invasion to drive production.

- **Date:** 1943
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Beaufort Division, Department of Aircraft Production (Commonwealth of Australia); artist James Northfield
- **Region:** [Oceania](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=oceania)
- **Country:** [Australia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=australia)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Curtin Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=curtin-government)
- **Leader:** [John Curtin](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=john-curtin)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Home front](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=home-front)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Australian War Memorial](https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C256561), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (AWM: copyright expired; 1943 Commonwealth department poster) Beaufort Division, Department of Aircraft Production; artist James Northfield. 1943. Australian War Memorial, ARTV09061.

## Text on the object

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

```
RINGED with MENACE!

BAR THE GATES - WITH 'BEAUFORTS'
So that We may live in Peace

[signed] Northfield

BEAUFORT DIVISION
DEPARTMENT OF AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION

[map place names in very small type, e.g. Alice Springs; others illegible]
```

The image as supplied by the holding institution carries a white strip below the sheet reading 'AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL' and 'ARTV09061', added by the museum and not part of the poster.

[← The More Women at Work the Sooner We Win!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/more-women-at-work-sooner-we-win-1943/) [Sedari Menanam Hingga Memetik (From Planting to Harvest) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sedari-menanam-hingga-memetik-1943/)

## Using the same techniques

- [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/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (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/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)