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
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.
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. Army, Information Service Division (ISD No. 100)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Event
- World War II
- Techniques
- Outrage baitName-calling
- 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 (NARA 513570, local id 44-PA-122), Records of the Office of Government Reports, Record Group 44, series 'World War II Posters', retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. Government work; NARA use restriction 'Unrestricted')
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Text on the object
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.
