---
title: Safety Height for Bombing (Air Diagram No. 1295)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-safety-height-for-bombing-1940/
description: A monochrome painting shows an RAF twin-engined bomber releasing bombs while a second aircraft, caught in the blast of an earlier explosion.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Safety Height for Bombing (Air Diagram No. 1295)

[![Safety Height for Bombing, 1940 UK poster: A monochrome painting shows an RAF twin-engined bomber releasing bombs while](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-safety-height-for-bombing-1940.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-safety-height-for-bombing-1940.jpg)

# Safety Height for Bombing (Air Diagram No. 1295)

A monochrome painting shows an RAF twin-engined bomber releasing bombs while a second aircraft, caught in the blast of an earlier explosion, falls out of the sky above a column of fleeing vehicles and soldiers. The text tells crews not to let 'enthusiasm or excitement' override judgment and not to fly below the safe height for their bombs; the falling aircraft is the only fear cue.

## 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

```
SAFETY HEIGHT FOR BOMBING

Do not let enthusiasm or excitement affect your judgment. Remember the safety of your crew. When using instantaneous or short delay fuses, do not come below the safe height for the bombs you are using.

[signature:] H.R. MILLAR
Drawing by FLIGHT
AIR DIAGRAM No. 1295—2/40
PRINTED FOR H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE BY JORDISON & CO., LTD., LONDON & MIDDLESBROUGH. 51-6366.
```

[← "Never Was So Much Owed by So Many to So Few" (The Prime Minister)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-never-was-so-much-owed-to-so-few-1940/) [They Need Spares to Use Their Wings →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-they-need-spares-to-use-their-wings-1940/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [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.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 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/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [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)