They Need Your Waste Rubber!
A photograph shows airmen scrambling onto and swimming beside an inflatable rubber dinghy in rough water, beside the headline 'They need your waste rubber!'. The rescue scene carries the emotional weight of the aircrew onto the household's scrap rubber (transfer), and the peril at sea implies that withheld rubber costs lives (fear appeal).
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1939
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- His Majesty's Stationery Office (printed by J. Weiner Ltd, London)
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, War and the military
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- 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 Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (UK Crown copyright, 50 years from publication, expired before 1996; no URAA restoration)
Her Majesty's Stationery Office; printed by J. Weiner Ltd, London. c. 1939-1945. U.S. National Archives, NAID 44267251 (44-PF-463).
Text on the object
THEY NEED YOUR WASTE RUBBER ! PRINTED FOR H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE BY J. WEINER LTD. LONDON, W.C.1
