---
title: This Isn't War... It's Murder (U.S. Army Official Poster)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/this-isnt-war-its-murder-army-1943/
description: Soldiers in dark helmets with distorted, near-skeletal faces thrust bayonets toward a figure under a red-cross marker, above a pasted newspaper clipping…
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Ethnic slur in a pasted headline; Japanese soldiers drawn with distorted faces bayoneting a wounded figure. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![This Isn't War... It's Murder (U.S. Army Official Poster)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/this-isnt-war-its-murder-army-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/this-isnt-war-its-murder-army-1943.jpg)

# This Isn't War... It's Murder (U.S. Army Official Poster)

Soldiers in dark helmets with distorted, near-skeletal faces thrust bayonets toward a figure under a red-cross marker, above a pasted newspaper clipping headed 'Japs Bayonet U.S. Wounded Ambushed on Pacific Island'. The clipping supplies a news report as the hook and the tagline 'Make 'em pay... Keep producing' prescribes one outlet for the anger.

## Text on the object

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

```
THIS
ISN'T WAR
...IT'S
MURDER

Japs Bayonet U. S. Wounded
Ambushed on Pacific Island
By J. Norman Lodge
Associated Press Staff Writer
With United States Troops on New Georgia Island, July 27 (Delayed).—A Japanese ambush attack on wounded American soldiers was [illegible]
Officer's Candidate School, told m[e] in the presence of his command[ing] officer:
"I had a detail of [cropped]

Make 'em pay...
KEEP PRODUCING

U.S. ARMY OFFICIAL POSTER
I.S.D. No. 100
```

The clipping is partly torn at the edge and its lower lines are cropped by the layout; those lines are not transcribed.

[← This Is the Enemy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/this-is-the-enemy-1943/) [Nippon Eigasha newsreel, intertitle on Prime Minister Tojo's visit to Java and the Central Advisory Council →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tojo-java-central-advisory-council-newsreel-1943/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Japs Execute Doolittle Men. We'll Pay You Back Tojo](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japs-execute-doolittle-men-payroll-savings-1943/) (United States · 1943 · Name-calling, Outrage bait). Content note: Ethnic slur in headline; grimacing caricature of Tojo with exaggerated teeth struck by a fist.
- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (Electoral Saxony · 1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [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.
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (Dutch Republic · 1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (Great Britain · 1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The North Briton, No. XLV, 23 April 1763 (John Wilkes), opening page](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/north-briton-no-45-wilkes-1763/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Apr 23, 1763 · Name-calling)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Province of Massachusetts Bay · Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Hand-coloured engraving of bloodied dead and wounded colonists after soldiers fired on a crowd.
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (France · 1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)