Content note: Wartime caricature of a Japanese military figure with exaggerated facial features and blood-covered hands gripping a map of the Pacific. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Your Bit Can Help Drive Him Mad!
Red, white and blue illustrated sheet: a bald, bespectacled, snarling caricature in epaulettes grips a globe with blood-red hands over the East Indies, Philippines, Borneo and Australia, while drops of water fall on his head. The figure is a racial caricature of a Japanese military leader, a dehumanising label image (name-calling), and the bloodied hands add a fear-appeal about Japanese expansion.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Compliments of J. P. Seeburg Corp. (artist signature: Hamill)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front, Race and ethnicity
- 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)
Compliments of J. P. Seeburg Corp. (artist signature: Hamill). National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-169 (NAID 513615).
Text on the object
YOUR BIT CAN HELP DRIVE HIM MAD! [map labels:] PHILIPPINE / EAST INDIES / BORNEO / AUSTRALIA [signature:] HAMILL [imprint:] (c) 1942 COMPLIMENTS OF J. P. SEEBURG CORP.
