---
title: Wasted Clothing, Equipment is Another Ship Lost
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-wasted-clothing-equipment-another-ship-lost-1939/
description: A large downward arrow ends in a photographed soldier in full kit, while a sinking ship lies across the word WASTED in the sea above.
section: Collection
---

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3. Wasted Clothing, Equipment is Another Ship Lost

[![Wasted Clothing, Equipment is Another Ship Lost, 1939 UK poster: A large downward arrow ends in a photographed soldier](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-wasted-clothing-equipment-another-ship-lost-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-wasted-clothing-equipment-another-ship-lost-1939.jpg)

# Wasted Clothing, Equipment is Another Ship Lost

A large downward arrow ends in a photographed soldier in full kit, while a sinking ship lies across the word WASTED in the sea above. The slogan equates wasted clothing and equipment with a ship lost, a fear appeal built on the loss of shipping, and closes with a plain instruction to take care of equipment.

## 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

```
WASTED
CLOTHING, EQUIPMENT
IS ANOTHER SHIP LOST
TAKE CARE OF YOUR EQUIPMENT
AND IT WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU

Printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Elm Press (N.R.P. Co., Ltd.). 51-1958
C.G.E. P.R.2 56
A GAMES
```

[← War Savings will make your dreams come true](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-war-savings-will-make-your-dreams-come-true-1939/) [Wasted Food is Another Ship Lost →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-wasted-food-is-another-ship-lost-games-1939/)

## 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)