Operations Against Troops
In every instance of systematic American use of psychological warfare
against enemy troops during World War II, affirmative results were
discerned after the operation had been in effect for a short while.
Figure 46 shows the consummation of the troop propaganda program; these
Germans are surrendering and they carry the Allied leaflets with them.
By the latter phases of the liberation of France, 90 per cent of the
enemy prisoners reported that they had seen or possessed Allied leaflets
and the most famous leaflet of them all, the celebrated _Passierschein_
(see figure 4) came to be as familiar to the Germans as their own paper
money.[41] Since every enemy who surrenders is one less man to root out
or destroy at a cost of life to one's own side, the sharp upswing of
enemy surrenders was a decided military gain.
Two separate types of psychological reaction are to be sought in the
enemy soldier's mind. The first consists of a general lowering of his
morale or efficiency even when he is not in a position to perform any
overt act, such as surrendering, which would hurt his side and help
ours. This may be called MO, or morale operations. The second type of
action is overt action (surrendering, deserting his post of duty,
mutinying) which can be induced only if the appeal is expertly timed.
Operations against troops must be based on the objective military
situation. Suffering and exertion increase realism; plain soldiers are
not apt to be talked over by propaganda unless the propaganda is
carefully cued to their actual situation. All propaganda should be based
on fact; propaganda to troops must be based not merely on fact, but must
show shrewd appreciative touches of understanding the troops' personal
conditions. Propaganda is not much use to a nation undergoing abject
defeat, for the troops on the victorious side will be buoyed up by the
affirmation of victory from their own eyes.
Troop propaganda must therefore aim at eventual willing _capture_ of the
individual--not at surrender by his individual initiative. It must
implant the notion that he may eventually be trapped, and that _if_ that
happens he should give up. The propaganda must not meet the soldier's
loyalty in a head-on collision but must instead give the enemy soldier
the opportunity of rationalizing himself out of the obligations of
loyalty ("true loyalty requires survival and therefore surrender"). The
steps, therefore, needed for good propaganda to actual combat troops
include the following:
first, the notion that the enemy soldier may have to surrender as his
side loses or retreats ("other [named] units have surrendered, with
so-and-so many men; you will have to, too");
second, themes which make the enemy soldier believe that an all-out
effort is wasted or misapplied;
third, the idea that he or his unit may find themselves in a hopeless
situation soon;
fourth, identifying the next authentically bad situation with the
"hopeless" situation;
fifth, concrete instructions for the actual surrender.[42]
[Illustration: _Figure 52: Basic Types: Troop Morale._ Leaflets may be
aimed at (1) morale, (2) news, (3) action. Morale leaflets neither
communicate news nor call for specific action. Rather, they pave the way
for action. Many of the previous illustrations have been of this type.
This one is a troop morale leaflet used by the puppet Free India Army on
their own men, who were discouraged by the self-evident lack of matériel
and numbers. (Singapore, about 1944.)]
=Morale Operations.= Morale operations in the black field are, for the
American record, still a closed book. German black operations against
the French included such enterprises as sending French soldiers letters
from their home towns telling them that their wives were committing
adultery or were infected with venereal diseases, or calling out names
and unit designations to French troops facing them in the Maginot Line,
or giving away mourning dresses to women who would wear them on the
streets of Paris, or intercepting telephone communications in the field
and giving confusing or improper orders.
[Illustration: _Figure 53: Paired Morale Leaflets._ The Christmas card
showing the Nativity was dropped by General MacArthur's psychological
warfare people on the Filipinos. The Christmas cards with bells were
prepared by the Japanese for the U.S. Army. The former were designed to
cheer on the Filipinos; the latter, to depress the Americans with the
defeatist messages inside the cards.]
Morale operations on the white side included such items as the
following:
Sending mournful poetry leaflets to Japanese units which were known to
be demoralized for lack of home furlough (China Theater);
Dropping beautiful colored pictures of luscious Japanese victuals on
starving troops (North Burma);
Showing the Japanese Sad Sack in a cartoon, fighting everywhere while
his officers get all the liquor, all the food, all the girls, and all
the glory, while the common soldier ends up cremated (Southwest
Pacific);
Demonstrating that the Nazi pets on the German High Command have
disrupted the splendid German military tradition and have thrown out
the really competent professional generals (Soviet-German front);
Pinning the nickname, _Der Sterber_ (roughly, "Old
Let's-go-get-killed!"), on a German general who had boasted of his
willingness to expend personnel (Anglo-American and Soviet radio);
Telling the German troops they were dying for a cause already lost
(Italy);
Reporting back to the Germans the statements made by prisoners, to the
effect they were damned glad that they were out of the fighting
(France);
Telling the Japanese on Attu and Kiska that just as surely as the
_kiri_ leaf, symbol of death, would fall in the autumn, they too would
fall (North Pacific);
Telling the Japanese homeland and troops that the Japanese Emperor had
loved peace but that the militarists had dragged the Sacred Empire
into war ("Peaceful is Morning in the Shrine Garden" leaflet; designed
for Aleutians, used over Japan);
Telling the Chinese in China that the Americans would soon cut the
Japanese conquered empire in two with Asiatic landings, and then
dropping the leaflet, written in simple Chinese which could be figured
out by Japanese, on the Japanese troops (China);
Congratulating imaginary agents in ostensible code over the voice
radio for the excellent work they have allegedly done in the enemy
home country (all theaters).
[Illustration: _Figure 54: Troop Morale Leaflet, Grey._ This German
leaflet from the Italian front attempts to remind American troops of the
bonus troubles of 1932--a year in which most of the American soldiers
were still in school. Only to older men could the appeal carry much
weight. The drawing and typography are distinctively German. In terms of
source, this leaflet is grey.]
[Illustration: _Figure 55: Chinese Communist Civilian Morale Leaflet._
This leaflet attempts to raise peasant morale while calling in general
terms for economic action. It shows a peasant family welcoming home the
father, who has been made a Hero of Labor. (Given the author by
Political Department, Border Area Government, at Yenan in September
1944.)]
[Illustration: _Figure 56: General Morale: Matched Themes._ The American
leaflet and Japanese one both show the same map with the same
event--cutting of the enemy lifeline. In each case, the event is alleged
to be news. However, the purpose of the leaflet is to depress the morale
of all enemies who see it and to raise the morale of all friends.]
[Illustration: _Figure 57: The Unlucky Japanese Sad Sack._ This morale
pamphlet was used on the Japanese in South and Southwest Pacific. While
it never produced any startling results on them, it did no harm. The
pictures are done by a qualified Japanese artist. The pamphlet tells the
story of the Japanese common soldier whose officers get everything and
give him nothing except a cremation box and memorial tablet.]
The category "morale leaflets" covers all leaflets which neither call
for immediate action, nor are designed primarily to convey news as such.
=News Leaflets.= Figures 1, 7, 59, 60 and 65 are news leaflets. The
propaganda purpose is evident, even to the enemy. But in the best of
these leaflets there is a tendency to let the facts speak for
themselves, and to show the enemy just what the actual situation is.
=Tactical Defensive Psychological Warfare.= Morale operations are
designed, therefore, to obtain responses other than immediate action.
Several possible goals can be sought, singly or jointly. The commonest
is preparation of the enemy soldier's mind for the actual physical act
of surrender, the moral act of doing no more for his own side. Whenever
surrender requires nothing more than passivity, morale leaflets are even
more promising; in such cases all that is asked of the enemy is that he
sit tight, fight inefficiently, and put up his hands when he is told to
do so. Other purposes of morale operations include the irritation of
enemy groups against each other, the general depression of enemy morale,
the discouragement of enemy troops, officers or commanders.
Morale operations, to be effective, must be aimed at the actual,
specific morale with which they are concerned. Well fed troops cannot be
frightened by the remote prospect of starvation. Well officered troops
cannot be induced to mutiny. Troops with good mail service cannot be
made homesick. However, weak points in the enemy organization can and do
provide targets for morale operations. The defeat situation imposes
tremendous strain on both the individual soldier and on officers in
positions of responsibility. At such times, disunity rises to the
surface, rumors spread more readily, and propaganda operations against
morale can have devastating effect. (Allied psychological warfare
against Germans in 1944-45 was aimed both at general officers and at the
mass of the German troops--operations against the officers being founded
on the common-sense premise that if large-scale German surrenders were
sought, they could best be obtained by influencing those Germans who had
the authority to surrender.)
[Illustration: _Figure 58: Civilian Personal Mail._ A common stunt in
black or grey morale propaganda is the printing of facsimile personal
letters. The letter shown at left is given in the original German form,
along with its English twin which was--as usual--prepared for
administrative clearance, records, and information. (Europe, Allied,
1944-45.)]
[Illustration: _Figure 59: Basic Types: Newspapers._ Newspapers were
prepared by almost every belligerent for almost every other. The
examples shown above are Luftpost (SHAEF for Germans) and Rakkasan News
(USAFPA for Japanese). Each newspaper copies the form of enemy civilian
newspapers. The gross circulation of these airborne papers reached in
some cases up into the millions.]
A curious point developed. German morale in the higher grades was worse
than in the lower. In the very last year of the war, despite the
terrible air raids on their homeland behind them, the German troops on
the Western front underwent only slight morale deterioration--in
comparison with what they should have undergone had their morale borne a
direct relationship to the strategic position of Germany as a whole. On
the other hand, the morale among general officers and staff officers
became wretched. The _putsch_ of the generals the previous summer was
merely a foretaste of the demoralization of the German higher command.
This unusual situation arose from the fact that the National Socialist
propaganda machinery was still working on the masses of the troops. The
political officers still made speeches. The troops were given pep talks,
information about the war (hopelessly distorted information, but
information none the less), and promises of privileges and comforts
which--while they rarely materialized--were cheering. Simultaneously,
German army discipline in the Prussian tradition, never known to be
wishy-washy or weak, was sharply stiffened. Furthermore, the plain
soldiers carried over to the months of defeat those propaganda attitudes
which they had been taught in the prewar and war years by Hitler's
incessant domestic propaganda.
[Illustration: _Figure 60: Basic Types: Spot News Leaflets._ Spot news
often makes better propaganda if handled while still fresh than if
carried in newspapers or morale leaflets later on. The examples above
were used against the Germans. News is given on one side of the leaflet,
and is dropped while the news is still news; the other side has a
propaganda appeal reading, in effect, "You must choose for yourself. Die
for the Party or live for yourself!"]
In contrast with common troops, the officers had the professional skill
to understand the advantages possessed by the Allied armies. The
officers knew enough about global and continental strategy, about the
immediate strategy of the Western front, about economic factors and so
on, to see that the situation was genuinely bad. Furthermore, the
officer class had been less indoctrinated in the first place--many of
them having personally despised the Nazis while welcoming Naziism as a
means of getting the "cattle," the common people, into line behind the
Wehrmacht--and those of them concerned with propaganda naturally became
critical of all propaganda, including their own government's, and
communicated their criticisms to their brother officers.
[Illustration: _Figure 61: Basic Types: Civilian Action._ Desired
civilian action can often be obtained by the use of clear instructions
transmitted in leaflet form. This leaflet calls on the people of Alsace,
Lorraine and Luxembourg to stay away from German communication lines,
not to work for the Germans, and to make careful notes of atrocities
which the Germans may commit.]
German defenses against Allied psychological warfare worked. The German
troops fought on when they had no business fighting, when their own
generals thought it was time to quit and held out only because the S.S.
and Gestapo promised ready death to any high officer who even whispered
the word, "Defeat!"
This German defensive success was based on two factors:
(1) The good condition of the German troops in terms of food, supply,
communications, and weapons;
(2) The coordination of all morale services for the purpose of
defensive psychological warfare.
A common _Landser_, tough and ready in a whole division full of well
fed, well armed men, could not be expected to undergo despair because
freight-car loadings hundreds of miles away had dropped to zero. He
might see that the Luftwaffe was less in evidence; he might grumble
about mail, or about having to use horse transport, but as long as he
could see that his own unit was getting on all right, it was hard to
persuade him that defeat was around the corner. In World War I, the
German troops at the time of surrender _were_ much better off than most
of them thought they were; in World War II, they _thought_ they were
better off than they actually were. The Germans may not have been in
perfect shape, but they were incomparably better off than the starving
scarecrows with whom Generalissimo Chiang was trying to hold back the
Japanese in West Hunan or the Americans who had fought despair, fever
and Japanese--all three at once--on Bataan.
Along with their relatively good immediate condition, which masked and
hid from them the strategic deterioration of the Reich to their rear,
the German troops had the services of morale officers who were actually
defensive psychological warfare operators.
In some units (more on the Eastern front than the Western) the Germans
had _PK_ units--_Propagandakompanie_, or propaganda companies. These
were organizationally very interesting. They combined the functions of a
combat propaganda company--printing, radio work, interrogation of
prisoners, etc.--with the job of morale builders. Their services were
available not only for use against the enemy, but for aid to the German
troops themselves. Since they were currently informed of Allied
propaganda lines, they were able to distribute counteracting propaganda
at short notice and were even capable, on occasion, of forestalling
Allied propaganda themes in advance.
Defensive psychological warfare in the Wehrmacht and, so far as it is
known from Russian articles and fiction, in the Red Army as well,
depended on unit-by-unit indoctrination with contempt of the enemy,
mistrust of his news facilities, fear of his political aims, and hatred
for the whole enemy mentality. Propaganda officers, countersubversive
operatives, public relations men, and information-education officers
were either in the same office or were in fact the same men. Combination
of functions made possible the use of flexible counteracting propaganda.
Most of this counteracting propaganda was not counterpropaganda,
technically speaking. It was not designed against _Allied_ propaganda,
but for _German_ morale. Morale-building was not left to occasional
recreational facilities, newspapers for troops, USO entertainment and
the like, but was compelled through the use of internal espionage,
affirmative presentation of the German case, and unified informational
operations. This German tactical defensive psychological warfare was
neither a total success nor a total failure; insofar as it helped the
Wehrmacht hold out, it aided the last-ditch Nazi war effort.
[Illustration: _Figure 62: Basic Types: Labor Recruitment._ On occasion,
civilian labor becomes a highly critical factor even in an area of
active operations. Leaflets can urge labor to strike against the enemy;
they can also induce labor to come over and get to work. This leaflet
was dropped on the Burmese, Shans, and Kachins, showing all the good
things of life, promising high wages and bonuses and adding that,
anyhow, it was patriotic. Come work for the Allies!]
The American army did not employ defensive psychological warfare in
World War II. Troop indoctrination was extremely spotty. American morale
remained good, not because it was _made_ good by professionals who knew
their job, but because Providence and the American people had brought up
a generation of young men who started out well and--since the situation
never approached hopelessness--kept on going with their spirits high.
For the future, the American and British armies face the problem of
devising arrangements whereby within the limits of a free society
soldiers can be affirmatively indoctrinated in the course of operations.
USO, Red Cross, public relations, information and education at home,
morale staffs in the theaters, Armed Forces Radio Service, OWI, the
American press and the overseas military papers--these went their
separate and uncorrelated ways without doing any harm, _last time_. If
the next war starts, as it may, with an initial interchange of
terrifying strategic bombardments, the morale situation may be
inherently less healthy. Wise planning would provide, perhaps, a single
chain of command for public relations, military propaganda and morale
services--extending this all the way down to the platoon, if
necessary--to make sure that the "national line" on any given topic is
explained, presented, repeated, and (if necessary) enforced.
Such defensive psychological warfare might work against sensational
enemy black operations, against attempted political division, and
against fabrication of the news--provided it was carried out in an
expert fashion. It could not change morale deterioration resulting from
practical deterioration within the troop unit itself, except to
decelerate the rate of decline. It would not make up for poor
leadership. Nothing makes up for poor leadership.
Defensive psychological warfare at higher levels remains a
self-contradiction. As pointed out above (page 159), good psychological
warfare is never directed merely against other psychological warfare. It
is directed at the mind of the target audience, at _creating_ attitudes
of belief or doubt which lead to the desired action. Getting and keeping
attention is one of its major missions, and psychological warfare which
starts by fixing attention on the enemy presentation is doomed from the
start. One of the most conspicuous examples of this was President
Roosevelt's sensational message of 15 April 1939, addressed personally
to the German Chancellor, Hitler, asking that Hitler promise not to
invade 31 countries which Roosevelt listed by name. Defensive in tone,
the message gave Hitler the chance to answer over the German world-wide
radio while his Reichstag laughed its derision and applause. President
Roosevelt's message was decent, sane, humane; it was inspiring to the
people who already agreed with him; but it created no attitude in the
Germans to whom it was addressed. A sharp, bullying, implicitly
threatening speech from President Roosevelt might have penetrated the
German mentality of the time, even Hitler's; reasonable reproach did not
work. It was not aimed at creating any specific emotional reaction in
the _German_ mind.
Finally, it must be mentioned that defensive psychological warfare must
include countersubversion and counterespionage. The Cheka--Soviet secret
police in its first form--once boasted that "capitalist trouble-makers
and saboteurs" could not long function in Russia because the
countersubversive police were over a hundred million strong. What they
meant was that they had trained and bullied the population into
reporting anyone and everyone who seemed out of line. An attitude of
popular cooperation with countersubversive agencies can be achieved only
when those agencies are efficient, respected, and properly presented to
the public. Psychological warfare can defend its homeland against enemy
operations in kind only if it creates an awareness of propaganda and
makes the public critical of attitudes or opinions adverse to national
policy. Inexpert official tactics, or the general denunciation of
dissent, makes the citizen believe, with Mr. Bumble in _Oliver Twist_,
that "... the law is a ass, a idiot."
=Role of Small-Unit Commanders.= Unless a small-unit commander happens
to command a unit which includes a Psychological Warfare team, he will
have no active Psychological Warfare role. Psychological Warfare
operations require the services of experts, and it would be easy for a
small-unit commander to jeopardize the propaganda effort of an entire
front by well meant but ill conceived interference in Psychological
Warfare operations.
Where the unit does include a Psychological Warfare team, a duality of
control arises. This requires good sense to keep in balance. The
commander possesses absolute command and responsibility for the
movement, protection, and operations timing of the team which happens to
be attached to his unit. He should not presume to interfere in the
special propaganda instructions flowing down to the team from superior
Psychological Warfare echelons. Because of the pressing needs of
propaganda operatives for news and for order-of-battle intelligence, it
is normally desirable that they have their own signal facilities and
that their routine operational communications short-circuit normal
military channels. Otherwise, the unit's signal facilities will be
overloaded with messages important to the Psychological Warfare team,
but useless to the unit as a whole. Such absurdities as the encipherment
and decipherment of routine enemy news digests should by all means be
avoided. On the other hand, the command and administrative messages
should go through normal military channels. In the Galahad operation
against the Japanese in North Burma, in which Merrill's Marauders
participated, such a double set of communications channels took a long
time to develop.
Where the small-unit commander does not possess professionally trained
and equipped Psychological Warfare facilities, he should no more expect
to engage in offensive Psychological Warfare than to undertake chemical
warfare with improvised materials. It becomes his responsibility to turn
to liaison.
=Field Liaison.= One of the new roles developed within the Army during
World War II was that of "Psychological Warfare Liaison Officer." Such
men were either commissioned officers, usually of company grade, who had
been given appropriate training, or were uniformed civilians detailed
from OWI or OSS. It is the job of the liaison officer to become
acquainted, as far down the echelon of command as may be necessary, with
the commanders whom he is to service. He must at the same time retain an
intimate knowledge of the personnel, procedures and facilities of the
Psychological Warfare unit from which he is detached. His position must
be compared to that of a salesman, who should know his product, his
company, his sales manager, and his customers, all equally well. The
liaison officer should be able to explain to small-unit commanders what
Psychological Warfare can do for them, and he should learn to
discriminate between high-priority and low-priority requests for PW
materials.
For example, a well trained liaison officer might receive a call from a
regimental or battalion commander. He would find that the commander
desired leaflets to be used in a particular tactical situation. He
should be able to explain what standard ready-prepared leaflets were
available, what delay would be involved in making up special leaflets,
and what quantities of leaflets would be advisable. Turning back to his
home headquarters, he should be able to present the commander's case to
the leaflet printers or the public-address team, and should help the
propaganda people in understanding the commander's problems.
=Mechanics of Liaison.= The mechanics of liaison depend in each case on
the Psychological Warfare unit. Some had extensive networks of liaison
officers; others had virtually none. In China during 1943-44, the most
minor tactical request for a leaflet had to be channeled all the way
back to Theater Forward Echelon Headquarters, because the political
situation was so touchy, the Chinese language so difficult, printing
facilities so scarce, and qualified personnel so rare that there was no
point in having channels cut across lower down. In France and Belgium,
during 1944-45, Psychological Warfare units were established on a
considerable scale at the army level, and liaison officers were widely
scattered; it was possible for regimental or battalion commanders to
make direct requests of liaison officers.
=Radio Support.= On rare occasions, it becomes possible for radio
support to be given a specific unit. The American standard-wave
broadcasting station was set up in the vicinity of Lorient while that
French port, still held by the Nazis, was under American siege. The
_History of the 2d Mobile Broadcasting Company_[43] describes the
operation as being
... the first attempt to coordinate artillery, leaflet and radio
propaganda. The station had learned the location of the billets of
various [Nazi] units in the town, together with the names of their key
personnel. With this information, a "game" was arranged with the
artillery. One day, at a certain time, these units were addressed by
name and their members were told to go outside their buildings and
five minutes later they would receive a message. Precisely, five
minutes later, leaflet shells released the messages advising
surrender. The ability of the Americans to do things like that
impressed the German soldiers with their hopeless position more than
words.
Obviously, such an operation required close contact with the enemy, plus
known possession of standard-wave radio receivers by enemy personnel.
=Air Support.= Normal communications channels, such as might be used for
air-ground combat liaison, form one of the most valuable aids to the
small unit. From time to time it is possible either for the unit to make
up the leaflets (if it has a PW team) and to request their dropping by
the associated air unit, or else to make a direct request to the
appropriate higher Psychological Warfare headquarters, asking that the
headquarters not only make up the leaflet but arrange for its dropping
at a stated time.
=Leaflet-Discharging Weapons.= The airplane was far and away the most
important leaflet-distributing device. In the CBI Theater, there was
developed a leaflet belly-tank of local design for use on pursuit
planes. The belly-tank was converted to a leaflet-throwing machine.
Adjustment of the controls could regulate the speed at which leaflets
were discharged, so that the pilot could give enemy units or
installations bursts of leaflets in precisely the same way that he would
strafe them with machine guns. This, however, was exceptional, owing to
the tremendous dispersion of the Japanese in the jungle and the need to
conserve leaflets. In most instances, the leaflet bomb or leaflet box
was the standard Air Force method of distributing leaflets.
Among the ground weapons used for discharge of leaflets, there are the
following:
chemical warfare shells converted to leaflet use, especially smoke
shells;
almost every variety of available artillery shell (howitzers having
proved especially useful);
rifle grenades converted for leaflets;
leaflet bundles with a small quantity of explosive, attached to a
quick fuze, packed so as to be thrown in a manner similar to the
manual throwing of a grenade.
Mortars were probably the chief leaflet-throwing device on both the
European and Asiatic fronts; the Germans went so far as to develop a
special propaganda mortar. Smoke shells proved particularly easy to
adapt.
The firing of leaflet shells is a responsibility of the unit possessing
the guns. Psychological Warfare teams were not issued their own guns,
save for unit protection. The actual distribution of leaflet shells was
effected, taking the Fifth Army as an example, in the following manner:
The Army Combat Propaganda Team planned, cleared, printed and packed
leaflets suitable for the occasion.
The Team cleared with the Artillery Officer, Fifth Army, an agreement
for an order to use the leaflets.
The Team's own liaison officers transmit the order to the appropriate
divisions and lower echelons. The order itself prescribed the times
for picking up the leaflets from the ammunition dumps.
The Team procures the empty shells and packs them with leaflets.
The Army order allots 150 leaflet shells per division.
The Team specifies, in the order, the time-limit within which the
shells are to be used.
Corps and/or division selects the specific targets, the general target
being all enemy concentrations within range.
In smaller units, the propaganda unit would often be placed in direct
communication with a specific artillery unit, which would be charged
with the responsibility for discharging the leaflet shells at opportune
times. When a requesting unit asks for leaflets, and itself possesses
the guns which could fire leaflet shells, it is entirely possible for
the supplier to send leaflets ready-packed in the shells. However, even
the most rapid shell-packing job takes considerably more time than the
readying of aircraft for leaflet distribution. When it is considered
that the plane not only discharges the leaflets, but delivers them from
the supply point, all in one operation, it will be seen that close
air-ground coordination will often do a quicker, bigger job of leaflet
saturation than could be achieved by the requesting, preparing,
transporting and firing of leaflet shells.
=Contingencies of the Future.= This text refers to known experience.
Short of turning to the field of futuristic fiction, it is impossible to
provide discussion of situations which have not been known in the
American Army. The experiences of the Nazis and the Japanese cannot be
taken by ourselves as wholly parallel, since those peoples, under
dictatorship and rabid indoctrination, produced a different kind of army
from the American. What should a small-unit commander do if his men
thought they had been contaminated by airborne disease germs distributed
by enemy bacteriological warfare planes? How should he act if his men
were told by an enemy broadcast that they would be exposed to radiation
which would cause anemia, cancer, or death--if they did not surrender
immediately? What should he do if he finds himself cut off from all
American supplies, operating a lonely unit in contaminated or dangerous
areas, and then discovers that his own men are the victims of enemy
black propaganda? How should he behave if his men get the idea that they
are never going to be replaced, and if they suspect (either
spontaneously or because of enemy action) that the unit has been
abandoned by the American government and people?
What could a commander do if a delegation called on him, right out in a
zone of operations, and demanded a right to be heard? Suppose that he
knew their complaints about food, rotation, danger, etc., to be
justified, and knew at the same time that the enemy had subverted some
of his men into being either dupes or traitors. Suppose his men
protested a lack of deep lead-lined shelters the day after enemy
leaflets instructed the American soldiers to ask for such shelters.
Should he treat all such enlisted men as traitors? Suppose he is faced
with the specter of political treason, subversion, and revolution?
American officers have not faced such problems since the days in which
George Washington was Commander in Chief. War after war, we have gone
into the fight with a profound confidence in our ability to win. Future
war may hold forth no such assurance. If America is injured, her troops
decimated, their homes exploded or poisoned by foreign atomic attack,
brand-new questions of psychological warfare will be posed. No living
American has ever had to face such problems. This is no assurance that
they will never occur. Upon the manhood, the fairness, the sheer
intelligence of small-unit commanders there may fall the unexpected task
of holding their units together in the face of disastrous psychological
attack.
=Surrender Leaflets.= Surrender leaflets are the infantry of the
propaganda war. They go in and finish the job to which the preceding
years of radio broadcasts, the demoralization of the home front, the
campaigns of news and morale materials to troops, and the actual air,
ground, and sea attacks have led up.
Sudden use of surrender leaflets on a victorious or unprepared enemy is
not likely to take effect. The Japanese surrender leaflets dropped on
the Americans in Southwest Pacific were issued without previous
materials readying the Americans. Furthermore, they were dropped when
the American situation was plainly improving, and when American soldiers
were not likely to be thinking about surrender in order to get
individual escape from the war.
The preparation of surrender leaflets calls for the tactical use of
printing facilities. This is the job of the combat propaganda unit, with
its high-speed press, its liaison with both ground and air forces, its
up-to-the-minute intelligence on enemy movements, situation, and order
of battle. The enemy should be given leaflets showing him how clearly he
is pinned down, identifying him, generally stripping him of the sense of
secrecy and the trust in his commanders that make it possible for him to
go on fighting. When surrender can be effected, he should be given the
simplest, plainest command the circumstances allow. In the case of the
Japanese, there were difficulties on the American side about letting the
Japanese come over to surrender; too many of them were suspected of
having tucked hand grenades into their _fundoshi_. Many a Japanese
started out for the Allied lines and failed to make his peaceful
intentions plain enough. The result was a strong deterrent to other
Japanese who may have been trying to decide whether they wanted to
surrender or not.
[Illustration: _Figure 63: Action Type: Air-Rescue Facilities._ These
leaflets from China Theater were designed to help the work of the
Fourteenth Air Force. Action called for from the civilians included the
assistance of hurt flyers, the identification of Americans as allies and
not as Japanese when they parachuted to the ground, the avoidance of
bridges and other bomb targets.]
It was found that the bright white leaflet with the identifying stripes
on it (figure 69) would be shown to our troops, who could be taught to
hold their fire when they saw Japanese carrying that type of leaflet.
To the Japanese, the plainness of the surrender formula was a
considerable help in coming over.
[Illustration: _Figure 64: Pre-Action News._ Psychological warfare
facilities can be extremely helpful in favorable situations. One of the
most important ways of developing a favorable situation is to predispose
enemy soldiers toward the idea of surrendering. News of surrender,
emphasis on the comforts and relief of prisoners of war, and above all,
emphasis on their numerousness can contribute to the actual act of
surrender. This newspaper looks like a newspaper, but its chief emphasis
is on the extent of surrenders.]
Variations on the surrender leaflet include the following devices:
Letters, with signatures blacked out, of prisoners of war who have
found conditions decent and who are enjoying rest, good care, and good
food;
Photographs, with the faces blocked out when security procedures or
the rules of war so require, showing enemy prisoners actually enjoying
the benefits of being out of the war;
Political arguments to the effect that the highest duty of the soldier
is to his country (or Emperor) and that if he dies for the sake of
some general in a foolish war, he will be denying his country a fine
postwar citizen like himself, needed for reconstruction and progress;
A list of the foods available to surrenderees (see figure 13, from
World War I);
A statement of the conditions of military imprisonment, reaffirming
the rules of the Geneva convention;
The promise that the potential prisoner will be allowed mail
communication with home;
Anger-motif, showing scum and profiteers at home, and attempting to
induce surrender by telling the soldier that he is being made a
sucker;
Obscene pictures, showing naked women, designed to make the
involuntary celibate so desirous of women that he surrenders out of
bad nerves. (Japanese idea, and did not work; the troops naturally
kept the pornography but merely despised the Japanese as queer little
people for having sent it. This type cannot be illustrated; the
Library of Congress has copies in a locked file.)
[Illustration: _Figure 65: Direct Commands to Enemy Forces._ As the
situation develops against the enemy, it becomes possible to use
leaflets to force the surrender of enemy troops by direct command. This
kind of appeal is lost when enemy morale remains irrationally high
because of a beloved commander or some other unpredictable factor, but
in normal situations it either forces the enemy commander's hand or
leaves him with a deteriorating force.]
[Illustration: _Figure 66: Basic Types: Contingency Commands._ Leaflets
can be made up in advance to govern typical situations which may arise.
This "Command to the Scattered German Troop Units" orders all isolated
German remnants to surrender to the nearest Allied force.]
[Illustration: _Figure 67: Tactical Surrender Leaflets._ Enemy troops
often fail to understand why they should surrender. Under such
circumstances, it is useful to send them a map, showing them plainly
what their situation is. If misrepresentation is done at this point, it
will be at the cost of loss of credence later on. These leaflets were
prepared to prevent Japanese units in the Philippines from staging
last-ditch fights after surrender of Japan. Similar maps had been used
for tactical purposes earlier.]
The effective surrender leaflet frequently turns language difficulties
into an asset. Whole series of leaflets will teach the enemy soldier how
to say, "I surrender," in the language of the propagandist. The words,
"Ei sörrender," were made familiar to every German soldier; it is simply
the phonetic spelling of English for Germans to pronounce. Surrender is
not merely a case of transferring loyalties; it is a highly dangerous
operation for most infantrymen. It takes nerve if done deliberately. The
voluntary surrenderee risks being shot by some exasperated officer or
comrade on his own side; he risks court-martial for treason if his
surrender is wilful and his side wins the war; he may run into a
trigger-happy enemy who will shoot him; he may fail to make himself
understood to the enemy. Therefore surrender leaflets try to catch some
simple procedure, to indoctrinate the enemy soldier with routine things
which he can do when the opportunity arises. Of all leaflets, those most
effective (most closely tied in with unconscious preparation for
eventual conscious choice) are the ones dealing specifically with
concrete treatment of prisoners of war. The surrender leaflet itself can
be used as an authorization to surrender. The enemy soldier who carries
a leaflet around with him, just in case he may need it, is already
partially subverted from enemy service.
[Illustration: _Figure 68: Basic Types: Surrender Leaflet._ The
surrender leaflet shown was not welcomed by the Japanese because it
indicated that the Japanese soldier using it wished to surrender. This
was very vulgar and depressing indeed, and few Japanese soldiers would
accept such a humiliation. Except for its wording, the leaflet is good.
As large as a big magazine cover, it is white with red and blue trim and
can be identified readily.]
=Other Action Leaflets.= In World War II there were ample opportunities
to surrender on most fronts. In subsequent conflicts, however, it is
quite possible that surrendering will be physically unfeasible, because
the surrenderee will have no one at hand to whom to surrender (see
below, pages 248-250). Recourse may then be had to a type of leaflet
only occasionally used in World War II--the leaflet which calls on enemy
troops to perform some action other than surrender. The commonest of
these is desertion--when it is known that enemy forces are being held in
a dangerous spot by their own command, and when there is a fair
probability that heavy artillery or air attack can be concentrated on
the area which has been strewn with leaflets. (A bluff normally fails,
and moreover discredits later operations of the same kind, whereas a
successful and fulfilled threat builds up cumulative credibility among
the enemy audience.) When long range weapons are used, it may be
possible to address troops by leaflet before the attack, suggesting that
they remove themselves, as individuals, to places of safety; such an
operation would assist enemy disorganization. The author knows of no
case where the Germans did this with their V-l or V-2 bombs, but figure
3 applied to both civilians and troops in the cities marked for
destruction by incendiary B-29 raids.
Black action appeals may teach the enemy troops how to malinger, may
present political or ethnic arguments to troops known to be members of
minorities or satellite nationalities (for example, Poles in Nazi
service), with the intent that these mutiny, or may--at the very end of
a war--call upon enemy troops as units to cease resistance and to await
a later opportunity for organized surrender.
=Loudspeaker Units.= The use of the amplified human voice developed
slowly in World War II. Improvised units were set up in North Africa,
in the Italian landings, at Anzio, and in the Normandy operations. At
times these talked over valuable groups of enemy prisoners, but their
range did not go beyond two hundred yards, which sharply limited their
utility. The Navy was simultaneously experimenting with Polly Planes in
the Pacific, which flew at considerable altitudes over islands and
talked to the Japanese troops on the ground.
[Illustration: _Figure 69: Improved Surrender Leaflet._ The new leaflet
which did bring the Japanese in was better phrased. It did not mention
the nasty word, _surrender_, but said, "I Cease Resistance." It also
showed the Japanese how to carry the leaflet so as to persuade the
triggery Americans that he was not holding a hand grenade behind it. The
back of the leaflet, instead of being left blank, showed happy Japanese
prisoners enjoying American captivity, their faces left identifiable as
Japanese but blanked out enough to head off individual identification.
Compare this with figure 4, the Passierschein we used on the Germans.]
Ultimate success came with the development of loudspeakers on tank
mounts. These developed a range of two miles with the result that they
had real value in combat operations. In April, 1945, a loudspeaker tank
with the XIX Corps made an average of twenty broadcasts a day during
action. Short talks were given to the enemy troops just before attack.
Attacks were then withheld long enough to permit prisoners to come in.
The attacks were then launched, lifted after a pause to permit more
prisoners to come in, and finally pushed through. This tactic worked
particularly well at road blocks where enemy troops were flanked. In the
Teutoburger Wald a whole platoon was persuaded to surrender. At
Hildesheim two hundred and fifty prisoners came over together. Elsewhere
in the drive into Germany, the Germans came over in even greater
numbers, but the situation was then so obviously at its best for us that
they probably would have responded similarly to command banners, black
words on white background, such as the ancient Chinese imperial forces
used to carry around for tactical communication with bandits and rebels.
On Okinawa tank-mounted loudspeakers were ingeniously hooked up. The
American tank officers and crews obviously could not speak good
colloquial Japanese. The Japanese troops were dug in like rodents, and
in a condition of desperation that made them fight cruelly and
suicidally. Even if the Americans shelled the openings of their cave
mouths or ran armored bulldozers over the holes, burying Japanese alive,
there was the chance that the Japanese would run through long
underground passages and pop up later, possibly at night, to cause more
damage before they were killed. With Americans and Japanese unable to
talk to one another, this condition might have led to a severe loss of
American life in mopping up hundreds upon hundreds of such minute
Japanese strongholds. The American tanks had loudspeakers mounted on
many of them; they had radio telephone communication, that could be used
between the different tanks on a tank team, or--it was an alternative,
and could not be used simultaneously--could be employed for the
commanding tank to communicate back to headquarters.
At headquarters, American Japanese, whose American accents had been
trained out of their voices in special public-speaking classes, sat
ready and waiting.
The tank team would come into the valley, and the American commander
would look the situation over. He would cut his radio telephone into
communication with headquarters, and would then say:
"Hillside ahead of me. No characterizing features. Five or six holes,
but I can't tell which ones have Japanese in them. I can get up the
hill. There are two trees at the crest of the hill, and a bunch of these
native graves over on the left."
The American-Japanese at headquarters would say: "Regular announcement,
sir? Do you want them to assemble by the graves or at the trees?"
"Tell them to stand in front of the graves. That way they'll be coming
down hill. Want to be cut in?"
"Yes, sir," says the headquarters man.
The tank commander would then cut his radiophone into a relay, and the
tanks which had loudspeakers would automatically connect the loudspeaker
units direct with the radio telephone. A voice, loud as the voice of a
god, would fill the entire valley, coming from everywhere at once and
speaking good clear Japanese:
"Attention, Japanese troops, attention! This is the American tank
commander calling. I am going to destroy all resistance in this valley.
Attention! I have flame-throwers. These will be used on all dugouts and
caves. Attention! Flame-throwers will be employed. Gunfire will close
the cave mouths. No Japanese personnel can expect to escape. Japanese
personnel commanded to cease resistance. Japanese personnel commanded to
cease resistance. Japanese personnel must assemble in front of native
burial place, to American left flank, Japanese right flank."
The tank commander would watch, while the loudspeakers blared. First one
Japanese, then more would come in small knots to the assembly place as
directed. The commander would then cut the American-Japanese back in and
say,
"I think they're holding out on the hill crest. Try that. Just a minute
or two. If they don't start coming, I'll go after them and cut you in
just when I reach the top...."
"Yes, sir. Which part of the hill crest, sir?"
"I can't tell. Anywhere."
[Illustration: _Figure 70: End of War._ This leaflet helped the war to
end, just as did the great leaflet which submitted the Japanese
surrender terms back to the Japanese people. On one side the leaflet
carries news from the Wehrmacht's last defeats; on the other it takes up
the future of Germany as determined by the Crimea Conference.]
The speakers would be cut back in: "Attention, Japanese forces remaining
on hill crest. Japanese forces just behind us under command of Colonel
Musashi surrendered last night and are now well taken care of. You are
being given the same chance. Attention, I will soon come up the
hill...."
A few more Japanese figures, small as ants on a sand dune, would come
into sight on the hill and begin clambering down to the point of
surrender.[44]
PART FOUR
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE AFTER WORLD WAR II