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Propaganda moved to the air during the Second World War. Leaflets bearing Japanese characters, like the one in this collection, were airdropped by US pilots in enemy-controlled territories of the Southwest Pacific with the intention to reduce the morale of their soldiers.
Military aircrafts released leaflets, flyers, and other smaller paper items to promote agendas and persuade audiences. This distribution, usually scattered in the air over conflict zones, reached combatants and civilians. Often these materials were also dropped in conjunction with air strikes. In the Second World War, both the Allies and Axis utilized airborne leaflet propaganda as a method of psychological warfare to demoralize their enemy, undermine their authority, and induce surrender. In the Southwest Pacific theatre, the US pilots airdropped hundreds of propaganda leaflets over Japan as well as other territories controlled by the Japanese.
NASM.2016.0017
United States. Office of War Information
1944
Jon Frank, Gift, 2016, NASM.2016.0017
0.05 Cubic feet (1 folder)
National Air and Space Museum Archives
US Army Air Force Japanese Propaganda Leaflets [Sylvan], NASM.2016.0018.
This collection consists of a 4 by 6.5 inch airborne propaganda leaflet issued by the United States in 1944 and dropped over the Japanese-held territories in New Guinea and the Philippines. This leaflet is written in a traditional Japanese writing system - used by the privileged class at this time - and attempted to discourage enemy soldiers. Also included in this collection is the biography of Second Lieutenant Hubert J. Frank, a Consolidated B-24 Liberator pilot with the 65th Bombing Squadron assigned to the 43rd Bombardment Group of the Fifth Air Force, who helped scattered hundreds of these leaflets.
Collection is in original order.
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US Army Air Force Japanese Propaganda Leaflet, NASM.2016.0017, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Aeronautics
Propaganda
World War, 1939-1945
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Leaflets
Biographies