Content note: Japanese figure is drawn with a racial caricature (exaggerated teeth, glasses, skin tone), shown as printed. This object is shown as it was published. Why
They're closer than you think!
Ordnance Department poster: a machinist at a lathe in the foreground, with two looming enemy figures above him, a German soldier in a helmet gripping a bomber model and a Japanese soldier with a rising-sun cap badge, both rendered with exaggerated features. The enemy is made to loom over the workbench, a fear-appeal urging faster war production.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. Army Ordnance Department
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, War and the military, Labor
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
U.S. Army Ordnance Department. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-111 (NAID 513559).
Text on the object
They're closer than you think! ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, U.S. ARMY - KEEP 'EM SHOOTIN[G] [imprint: U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1942-O-478616]
