---
title: '''保障海洋自由'' [Ensuring Freedom of the Seas] (Ensuring Freedom of the Seas [Chinese])'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/us-owi-ensuring-freedom-of-the-seas-chinese-1942/
description: A photograph of a US battleship firing its main guns, with smoke and crew in the foreground, sits above a Chinese text block.
section: Collection
---

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3. '保障海洋自由' [Ensuring Freedom of the Seas]

[!['保障海洋自由' \[Ensuring Freedom of the Seas\], 1942 US poster: A photograph of a US battleship firing its main guns, with smoke](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/us-owi-ensuring-freedom-of-the-seas-chinese-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/us-owi-ensuring-freedom-of-the-seas-chinese-1942.jpg)

# '保障海洋自由' [Ensuring Freedom of the Seas] (Ensuring Freedom of the Seas [Chinese])

A photograph of a US battleship firing its main guns, with smoke and crew in the foreground, sits above a Chinese text block, a US flag and a portrait of President Roosevelt, inside a blue border of stars. The headline puts the virtue phrase 'freedom of the seas' over a warship firing (glittering generalities), the flag and portrait lend authority (transfer), and the text gives only US ship counts and costs (card-stacking).

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/)

## Text on the object

Original (Chinese (traditional characters)) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
保障海洋自由

剛加入服務的美海軍無畏艦。 圖示她十六寸口大砲
轟發,砲彈每個一噸重,射程二十六里。 這是剛造成的
同等級無畏艦五艘之一,每船需費六千五百萬元,是世界
設備最好,戰鬥力最強的戰船。 美海軍現有戰船三百四
十三艘,再加上趕造中的三百四十五艘,任何封鎖海洋的
野心可以休矣!

羅斯福總統
```

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

```
Ensuring Freedom of the Seas

A battleship of the US Navy that has just entered service. The picture shows her 16-inch guns firing; each shell weighs one ton and the range is twenty-six li. She is one of five newly built ships of the same class, each costing 65 million dollars, the best-equipped and most powerful fighting ships in the world. The US Navy now has 343 warships, with 345 more being rushed to completion; any ambition to blockade the seas can be given up!

President Roosevelt
```

[← Ensuring Freedom of the Seas \[Blank edition, no text\]](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/us-owi-ensuring-freedom-of-the-seas-blank-1942/) [Veillant à la liberté des mers \[Ensuring Freedom of the Seas\] \[French\] →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/us-owi-ensuring-freedom-of-the-seas-french-1942/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Clay cylinder with the Ehulhul inscription of Nabonidus, king of Babylon, describing work on three temples](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cylinder-nabonidus-ehulhul-inscription-555bce/) (Neo Babylonian Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Seated limestone statue of Hatshepsut as king, with feminine royal titles on the throne, reassembled from fragments broken up at Deir el-Bahri](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hatshepsut-seated-statue-limestone-met-1458bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Transfer, Testimonial)
- [Glazed-brick panel with a striding lion, from Babylon (reign of Nebuchadnezzar II)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ishtar-gate-panel-striding-lion-nebuchadnezzar-ii-604bce/) (Neo Babylonian Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Limestone relief block of Ramesses II wearing the White Crown, a jubilee relief from his temple at Herakleopolis](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jubilee-relief-ramesses-ii-herakleopolis-met-05-4-256/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Transfer)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [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)
- [Egyptian alabaster jar inscribed with the name of Xerxes the Great in four languages (Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian, Egyptian), 486 to 466 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/xerxes-jar-four-languages-486bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Transfer)
