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This collection consists of three black and white Japanese language psychological warfare propaganda leaflets (Nos. 2094, 2097, and 2101) designed and printed by the United States Office of War Information (OWI) to be dropped by air over Japan during World War II, circa mid-1945.
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was formed during World War II on June 13, 1942, combining several preceding agencies to create a centralized unit to provide information about the ongoing war to the American public. The Domestic Branch of the OWI utilized printed materials, radio, and motion pictures to achieve their mission to help Americans understand the status and progress of the war effort; the Overseas Branch used print media to promote American war aims to foreign audiences and operated a Psychological Warfare Branch to use propaganda messages to target enemy troops and populations. In April 1944, the OWI office in Honolulu, Hawaii, added full-scale propaganda activities aimed at Japan to its war information duties, designing and printing Japanese-language propaganda leaflets to be dropped by air over Japan and Japanese-occupied territories by long-range Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers. By mid-1945 the OWI had established an office with a printing plant on Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, putting them closer to the bases of the US Army Air Forces' XXI Bomber Command whose aircraft were tasked with the job of delivering the leaflets to their targets. By the end of the war, tens of millions of leaflets had been airdropped over Japan.
NASM.XXXX.0846
United States. Office of War Information
1945
Unknown, found in collection, 2008, NASM.XXXX.0846
.05 Cubic feet (1 folder, 3 leaflets, 8.5 x 5.5 inches (22 x 14 cm))
National Air and Space Museum Archives
See related collection World War II Propaganda Leaflets [Kurzman], NASM.2008.0018, containing OWI Leaflet Nos. 112, 2001, 2010, and 2031.
This collection consists of three 5.5 x 8.5 inch black and white psychological warfare propaganda leaflets, printed on both sides, combining Japanese text with photographic images. The leaflets (Nos. 2094, 2097, and 2101) were designed and printed by the United States Office of War Information (OWI) circa mid 1945 and were intended to be air dropped from Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers over Japan and Japanese-occupied territories. All three leaflets promote the theme of unconditional surrender to the United States to prevent the further destruction of Japan, Japanese soldiers, and the Japanese people. Two of the leaflets feature a small portrait photograph of US President Harry S Truman with excerpts from a personal message to the Japanese people: "Unconditional surrender is a purely military term meaning only the yielding of arms. It does not entail enslavement. It does not entail extermination of the Japanese people."
The three leaflets which comprise this collection are arranged in numerical order by OWI number.
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World War II Propaganda Leaflets, NASM.XXXX.0846, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
World War, 1939-1945
World War, 1939-1945 -- Aerial operations
World War, 1939-1945 -- Propaganda
Psychological warfare -- 1940-1950
Aeronautics
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Leaflets