---
title: 'Air-raid notice: ''This city is the next target'' (US leaflet to Japanese civilians)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/warning-next-target-japan-leaflet-1944/
description: 'Front of a small Japanese-language leaflet: a black band across the top carries the title in large cream characters, ''Air-raid advance notice'', above a…'
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Air-raid notice: 'This city is the next target' (US leaflet to Japanese civilians)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/warning-next-target-japan-leaflet-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/warning-next-target-japan-leaflet-1944.jpg)

# Air-raid notice: 'This city is the next target' (US leaflet to Japanese civilians)

Front of a small Japanese-language leaflet: a black band across the top carries the title in large cream characters, 'Air-raid advance notice', above a red field with a cream starburst that reads 'This city is the next target of the American air force's attack.' The tell is the bare, imminent-strike statement addressed to civilians; the Library of Congress summary says the leaflet urged residents to evacuate before bombing.

- **Date:** 1944
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** U.S. psychological warfare staff, Pacific (issuing unit not stated on the item)
- **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america)
- **Country:** [United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-states)
- **Medium:** [Leaflet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=leaflet)
- **Issuer type:** [Military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=military)
- **Regime:** [Roosevelt Administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=roosevelt-administration)
- **Leader:** [Franklin D. Roosevelt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=franklin-d-roosevelt)
- **Audience:** [Enemy civilians](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=enemy-civilians)
- **Purpose:** [Warn or inform](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=warn-inform)
- **Theme:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Regime:** [Roosevelt administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/roosevelt-administration/)
- **Leader:** [Franklin D. Roosevelt](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/roosevelt-administration/#franklin-d-roosevelt)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2007675055/), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** US wartime military leaflet; LOC: No known restrictions on publication U.S. psychological warfare staff (issuer per LOC lot); Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LOT 8093, LC-DIG-ppmsca-13367.

## Text on the object

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

```
空襲豫告

この都市が
米空軍の
次の攻撃
目標です
```

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

```
Air-raid advance notice

This city is the next target of the American air force's attack.
```

[← Staking brengt alleen ellende over uw eigen volk (Strike brings only misery upon your own people)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/staking-brengt-alleen-ellende-1944/) ['Yesterday's enemy is today's friend' (US leaflet 18-J-1 to Japanese troops) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/yesterday-enemies-today-friends-leaflet-1944/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)