---
title: Safety rules
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/safety-rules-troop-transport-1942/
description: 'Army information sheet for troopships: photographs of lifeboats, life rafts, a soldier donning a life preserver.'
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Safety rules

[![Safety rules, 1942 US poster: Army information sheet for troopships](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/safety-rules-troop-transport-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/safety-rules-troop-transport-1942.jpg)

# Safety rules

Army information sheet for troopships: photographs of lifeboats, life rafts, a soldier donning a life preserver, men resting in life preservers and a boat being lowered, beside columns of rules and emergency instructions. The technique is faint: the closing line 'This knowledge may save your life' is a mild fear-appeal.

## 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

```
SAFETY RULES
Life boats in position on the deck of a transport.
[caption illegible] life rafts on board a troop ship.
A soldier puts on his life preserver.
Fully dressed, relaxing soldiers use life preservers as pillows.
A life boat being lowered.
Going over the side.
SAFETY PRECAUTIONS EXPLAINED
RULES
IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY
[body text of the explanation, the rules and the emergency instructions: not transcribed here, too small to read in the available image]
Prepared by
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF TRANSPORTATION
WATER DIVISION
PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL SERVICE DIVISION, A.S.F.
[imprint: illegible]
THIS KNOWLEDGE MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE
```

[← Safety first keeps him on the job](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/safety-first-keeps-him-on-the-job-1942/) [If it'll save a second, it's a great idea - let's have it! Short cuts can shorten the war →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/save-a-second-great-idea-1942/)

## 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)