---
title: Somebody blabbed - Button your lip! (sailor's hand and cap in water)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/somebody-blabbed-button-your-lip-sailor-hand-1942/
description: A drowning man's hand reaches up from dark blue water beside a floating sailor's cap, under the headline 'Somebody blabbed' and the line 'Button your
section: Collection
---

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3. Somebody blabbed - Button your lip! (sailor's hand and cap in water)

[![Somebody blabbed - Button your lip!, 1942 US poster: A drowning man's hand reaches up from dark blue water beside a floating](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/somebody-blabbed-button-your-lip-sailor-hand-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/somebody-blabbed-button-your-lip-sailor-hand-1942.jpg)

# Somebody blabbed - Button your lip! (sailor's hand and cap in water)

A drowning man's hand reaches up from dark blue water beside a floating sailor's cap, under the headline 'Somebody blabbed' and the line 'Button your lip!'. A torn-paper panel lists ship movements and war production as subjects not to discuss. The tell is fear-appeal: a lost sailor is tied to civilian talk, without a named incident.

## 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

```
SOMEBODY BLABBED

...don't talk about ship movements!
...don't talk about war production!

BUTTON YOUR LIP!

[signature:] ALBERT DORNE

For additional copies write to Graphics Division, Office of Facts and Figures, Washington, D.C. . . . Specify GPO Jacket No. 451041.
[imprint:] ☆ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1942—O
```

[← Singapore lost because of "not enough"](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/singapore-lost-because-of-not-enough-1942/) [Somebody blabbed - Button your lip! (soldier's hand and rifle in barbed wire) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/somebody-blabbed-button-your-lip-soldier-hand-1942/)

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- [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)