---
title: Use Your Eyes and Ears! Prevent Fire & Wrecking by Fifth Columnists in the Port & Docks
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/use-your-eyes-and-ears-port-and-docks-uk-1939/
description: A text poster with a drawn eye and ear tells port and dock workers to prevent fire and wrecking by 'fifth columnists' and to report suspicious persons
section: Collection
---

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3. Use Your Eyes and Ears! Prevent Fire & Wrecking by Fifth Columnists

[![Use Your Eyes and Ears! Prevent Fire & Wrecking by Fifth Columnists in the Port & Docks, 1939 UK poster: A text poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/use-your-eyes-and-ears-port-and-docks-uk-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/use-your-eyes-and-ears-port-and-docks-uk-1939.jpg)

# Use Your Eyes and Ears! Prevent Fire & Wrecking by Fifth Columnists in the Port & Docks

A text poster with a drawn eye and ear tells port and dock workers to prevent fire and wrecking by 'fifth columnists' and to report suspicious persons and things at once. The tell for fear-appeal is the staged threat of sabotage paired with one prescribed remedy, reporting; the tell for name-calling is 'fifth columnists', a label applied to unnamed persons with no stated evidence or criteria.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)

## Text on the object

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

```
USE YOUR EYES
AND EARS!
PREVENT FIRE
& WRECKING
BY
FIFTH
COLUMNISTS
IN THE
PORT & DOCKS
Report suspicious persons & things
AT ONCE

[imprint:] ISSUED BY LONDON PORT EMERGENCY COMMITTEE, AND PRINTED AT THE DOULTON PRESS, 73, MINORIES, LONDON, E.C.3.
```

[← War-Stricken Children in Britain Still Need Our Help!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/us-war-stricken-children-in-britain-1939/) [Ventilate Your Quarters →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ventilate-your-quarters-games-1939/)

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- [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.
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