The Voice of Bataan: 11th Anniversary of the Fall of Bataan, 9 April 1953, 1953 US poster: A Philippine commemoration poster

The Voice of Bataan: 11th Anniversary of the Fall of Bataan, 9 April 1953 (English poster distributed in the Philippines)

A Philippine commemoration poster for the 11th anniversary of the fall of Bataan, 9 April 1953. A winged figure holding a laurel wreath hovers over a ragged soldier raising a tattered white flag above fallen comrades, beside a poem in the defenders' voice and a 'Defenders, Bataan, Corregidor' badge. The tell is glittering generalities ('unconquerable faith', 'Our defeat is our victory') plus transfer, linking a surrender to a winged Victory.

Propaganda techniques used in this poster

Glittering generalities Transfer

Date: March 17, 1953
Period: Cold War
Made by: U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia series
Region: North America
Country: United States
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: State
Regime: Eisenhower Administration
Leader: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Audience: Foreign public
Purpose: Commemorate
Theme: War and the military
Event: World War II
Source: Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
Source: U.S. National Archives (NARA), Record Group 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, retrieved October 3, 2026
Rights: Public domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306)
U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, 17 March 1953. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 5730149, 306-PPA-248).

Text on the object

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

THE VOICE OF BATAAN

Bataan has fallen.
With heads bloody but unbowed, we
    yielded to the enemy.
Besieged on land and blockaded by sea,
We have done all that human endurance
    could bear.
What sustained us was a force more
    than merely physical.
It was the force of an unconquerable
    faith:
Something in the soul that is
    immortal!
It is the thought of native land.

All the world will testify.
Men fighting with an unshakeable faith
Are made of something more than flesh;
But we are not made of impervious steel.
The flesh must yield at last,
Endurance must melt away,
And the end of the battle must come.

Bataan has fallen,
But the spirit that made it stand
    - a beacon to all the world -
Cannot fall...

Our defeat is our victory.

DEFENDERS
BATAAN
CORREGIDOR

9 APRIL 1953
11th ANNIVERSARY of the FALL OF BATAAN