--- title: '''Stop useless resistance'' (Japanese leaflet to the Hong Kong garrison)' url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/stop-useless-resistance-hong-kong-leaflet-1941/ description: A pink-toned English-language leaflet headed 'STOP USELESS RESISTANCE.' A black bomb marked with the Japanese sun disc falls toward a map of Hong Kong… section: Collection --- [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/) [!['Stop useless resistance' (Japanese leaflet to the Hong Kong garrison)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/stop-useless-resistance-hong-kong-leaflet-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/stop-useless-resistance-hong-kong-leaflet-1941.jpg) # 'Stop useless resistance' (Japanese leaflet to the Hong Kong garrison) A pink-toned English-language leaflet headed 'STOP USELESS RESISTANCE.' A black bomb marked with the Japanese sun disc falls toward a map of Hong Kong island and the coast, where a tiny figure stands on the island. Two text blocks warn of bombardment from the air, then appeal to British officers to spare their men and promise that surrendering troops will be guaranteed their lives and livings. The tell is the staged annihilation paired with one prescribed way out. - **Date:** 1941 - **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii) - **Made by:** Imperial Japanese forces (as attributed in the Hong Kong Museum of History display) - **Region:** [East Asia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=east-asia) - **Country:** [Empire of Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=empire-of-japan) - **Medium:** [Leaflet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=leaflet) - **Issuer type:** [Military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=military) - **Regime:** [Showa Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=showa-japan) - **Leader:** [Hideki Tojo](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=hideki-tojo) - **Audience:** [Enemy forces](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=enemy-forces) - **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply) - **Theme:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military) - **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii) - **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) - **Regime:** [Empire of Japan, 1937 to 1945](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/showa-japan/) - **Leader:** [Hideki Tōjō](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/showa-japan/#hideki-tojo) - **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are - **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (photograph from Flickr, Hong Kong Museum of History display)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_leaflet_(5345419352).jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026 - **Rights:** CC BY-SA 2.0 (photograph by InSapphoWeTrust on Commons; 1941 wartime leaflet) Photo: InSapphoWeTrust (Los Angeles), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; display at the Hong Kong Museum of History. ## Text on the object Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked ``` STOP USELESS RESISTANCE. When the Japanese Force makes its attack, Hongkong cannot be escaped from the most fierce bombardment from the Japanese Air Armado. Even with no aid from the land force, it is certain that Hongkong will be smashed into pieces from the air. British officers, we appeal you to consider the very fact. Do not kill your men in meaningless resistance ! Remember, the Japanese Forces will guarantee the lives and livings of those who will surrender. [museum display caption text, partly cropped at top and bottom edges of the photograph, not part of the leaflet] ``` [← Românii basarabeni, Bucovinenii și minoritarii pașnici (leaflet for Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Romanian and Russian sides)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/romanian-german-leaflet-bessarabia-1941/) [V = Duitschland wint voor Europa op alle fronten (V = Germany wins for Europe on all fronts) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/v-duitschland-wint-voor-europa-1941/) ## 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)