---
title: '"Come on sailor, you''re just in time!!"'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/us-owi-come-on-sailor-coast-guard-alston-1943/
description: A large sailor in a beret wades toward a smaller figure, labelled 'Submarine Menace' with a swastika belt buckle.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. "Come on sailor, you're just in time!!"

**Content note:** A wartime US cartoon whose printed news item uses the period term 'Negroes' and which depicts a Nazi 'Submarine Menace' as a caricatured brute. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[!["Come on sailor, you're just in time!!", 1943 US cartoon: A large sailor in a beret wades toward a smaller figure, labelled](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/us-owi-come-on-sailor-coast-guard-alston-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/us-owi-come-on-sailor-coast-guard-alston-1943.jpg)

# "Come on sailor, you're just in time!!"

A large sailor in a beret wades toward a smaller figure, labelled 'Submarine Menace' with a swastika belt buckle, who is being carried off by a Coast Guard sailor; a news-item headline above reports 300 Black men going on active duty in the Coast Guard. The tell is a weak fit for glittering-generalities: a news item is framed as a heroic rescue, presenting the new Black recruits as arriving in time to help win the war.

## Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon

[Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/)

## Text on the object

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

```
"300 NEGROES GO ON ACTIVE DUTY IN U.S. COAST GUARD." -- NEWS ITEM
[on figure] SUBMARINE MENACE
"COME ON SAILOR, YOU'RE JUST IN TIME!!"
[signed] Alston
```

[← Backing the Attack on All Fronts!!! (National Negro Newspaper Week)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/us-owi-backing-the-attack-on-all-fronts-negro-press-1943/) ["Don't repeat it! - Loose talk costs lives!!" →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/us-owi-dont-repeat-it-loose-talk-alston-1943/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Gypsum alabaster slab inscribed in cuneiform, from Nimrud (Kalhu), reign of Ashurnasirpal II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/nimrud-slab-ashurnasirpal-ii-inscription-883bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Bronze sestertius of Trajan, reverse S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI, S C, the emperor on horseback riding down an enemy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sestertius-trajan-optimo-principi-0103/) (Roman Empire · 0103 · Testimonial, Glittering generalities)
- [Gold solidus of Constantine I, reverse RESTITVTORI LIBERTATIS](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/solidus-constantine-i-restitutori-libertatis-0313/) (Roman Empire · 0313 · Glittering generalities)
- [Gold solidus of Justinian I, reverse VICTORIA AVGGG with Victory holding a Christogram staff](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/solidus-justinian-i-victoria-avggg-0538/) (Byzantine Empire · 0538 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I (Royal Museums Greenwich version), oil on panel](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/armada-portrait-elizabeth-i-greenwich-1588/) (England · 1588 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Medal of Elizabeth I: portrait in a ruff, reverse an ark on stormy waves with SAEVAS TRANQVILLA PER VNDAS (18th-century aftercast of a 1588 model)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/elizabeth-i-ark-medal-aftercast-1588/) (England · 1588 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Frontispiece to Eikon Basilike, The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings (Hollar, 1649)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eikon-basilike-frontispiece-hollar-1649/) (Dutch Republic · 1649 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)