'لن يطرد العلم الاميركي من البحار' [The American Flag Will Not Be Driven from the Seas], 1942 US poster: A photograph shows

'لن يطرد العلم الاميركي من البحار' [The American Flag Will Not Be Driven from the Seas] (The American Flag is not Going to be Driven from the Seas [Arabic])

A photograph shows the bow of a large warship, crowded with onlookers, sliding down the ways at a shipyard under a bridge, above an Arabic headline attributed to President Roosevelt, a US flag and his portrait, inside a blue border of stars. The attributed headline backs the policy (testimonial), the flag and stars add national weight (transfer), and the text gives only the US fleet-expansion and battleship totals (card-stacking).

Propaganda techniques used in this poster

Testimonial Transfer Card stacking

Date: 1942
Period: Second World War
Made by: Office of War Information (OWI), U.S. Government (attributed from the NARA RG 44 series; no issuer imprint printed on the sheet)
Region: North America
Country: United States
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: State
Regime: Roosevelt Administration
Leader: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Audience: Foreign public
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Theme: War and the military
Event: World War II
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, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
Rights: Public domain (U.S. government work, NARA RG 44 OWI series)
Office of War Information, 1942-1945. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44 (NAID 44268469, 44-PF-R-6f).

Text on the object

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

— لن يطرد العلم الاميركي من البحار —
الرئيس روزفلت

ان الولايات المتحدة منصرفة الى مضاعفة اسطولها الذي هو الان اعظم اساطيل العالم واقواها وذلك لكي تضمن حرّية البحار وعدم استبداد الاقوام المعتدية بمسالكها بل تبقى حرّة آمنة مفتوحة لجميع الشعوب ضعيفهم وقويّهم على السواء. وترى هنا رسم انزال واحدة من المدرعات السبع عشرة الحديثة الى البحر. وحجم كل منها ٣٥٠٠٠ طنا ونيفا، فيجعل ذلك عدد المدرعات هذه اثنين وثلاثين مدرعة وهو ضعف ما تملكه اية امة اخرى.

الرئيس روزفلت

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

— THE AMERICAN FLAG WILL NOT BE DRIVEN FROM THE SEAS —
President Roosevelt

The United States is devoting itself to doubling its fleet, which is now the greatest and strongest of the world's fleets, in order to guarantee freedom of the seas and that aggressor peoples do not tyrannise over its routes, but that they remain free, safe and open to all peoples, weak and strong alike. You see here a drawing of the launching of one of the seventeen new battleships. The size of each of them is 35,000 tons and more, which makes the number of these battleships thirty-two, which is double what any other nation possesses.

President Roosevelt