Content note: Captions use the period terms 'Nazis' and 'Jap'; photographs show bomb loading and a captured submarine. This object is shown as it was published. Why
U.S.A. in Action: It's you soldiers of supply who keep the lifeline moving
Photo-montage poster from the 'U.S.A. in Action' series for supply-depot workers: a bomber crew loading a depth bomb on 'Tidewater Tillie', a food line in a tent, and engineers beaching a captured submarine, with captions below each. The tell is the red slogan band crediting supply troops with keeping 'the lifeline moving' and the selective set of success pictures with approving captions.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. Army, Army Service Forces Depots
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Own forces
- Purpose
- Reassure
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front
- 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 Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
U.S. Army, Army Service Forces Depots. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1138 (NAID 514673).
Text on the object
U.S.A. IN ACTION OFFICIAL PICTURES FROM WORLD BATTLEFRONTS [photograph lettering on aircraft: TIDEWATER Tillie] TARGET FOR TODAY. (Above) Preparing for a sweep over vital shipping lanes menaced by the Nazis, Tidewater Tillie, a four-motored Liberator, is loaded with aerial depth bombs at an airfield in Britain. Tough luck for any lurking sub her pilot spots! (At left) At the Charleston Ordnance Depot Dock bombs for Tidewater Tillie and her many flying sisters are familiar sights. Here we see a load of 1,000 lb. and 2,000 lb. "block busters" ready for a voyage abroad. Different missions call for different types of bombs, and plentiful stocks of them all must be available wherever American airpower is being assembled and sent against the enemy. COME AND GET IT! (Above) Doughboys lined up for chow in North Africa. Battle experience hasn't hurt American appetites—and the Quartermaster Corps sees that they are satisfied! Supplying these men is as big a problem as getting them there, with thousands of miles and Nazi submarine wolf packs between food sources and the mess tent. (At right) This Quartermaster Depot is helping make sure we have the best-fed army in the world. Here fruits, milk and other foods are being checked and loaded. ENGINEERS HELP JAP LANDING! —but it's a captured Japanese submarine the Army Engineers (above) are preparing to beach "somewhere in the South Pacific." Picture shows them hitching tractors to lines running out to where the sunken sub lies offshore. They'll have it up pronto. (At left) The Columbus Depot gets more Engineer machines ready for shipment to far-off fighting fronts. IT'S YOU SOLDIERS OF SUPPLY WHO KEEP THE LIFELINE MOVING [imprint:] U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O—521380 ARMY SERVICE FORCES DEPOTS
