APSIG seminar asks: What is propaganda in times of war?

Marie Sexton

On a bitter Canberra winter's night in June, over 40 braved the chill to hear two interesting and contrasting papers on propaganda in times of war, delivered, appropriately, in the Telstra Theatre of the Australian War Memorial.

Emma Jones from the War Memorial's Research Library spoke about their extensive collection of the publications of the Far Eastern Liaison Office (FELO). This innocuous title was the cover for their true activity, which was active combat propaganda in the Southwest Pacific theatre in World War II.

Saved from destruction by one of their staff who thought that this part of history should not be lost, the AWM has thirty folders of FELO publications produced between August 1942 and October 1945. In this period a staggering 69 million leaflets were produced. Emma described how they were distributed, usually by air but sometimes by artillery shells and flare canisters. Some were designed to tell the local peoples of dangers that they might face and so keep their support. Others were aimed at the Japanese army. The greatest problem appeared to be in establishing what might be effective and appealing. The Australians were caught between believing that the Japanese were completely indoctrinated as a fighting machine, yet knowing that propaganda must aim at the individual. FELO tried to avoid outright lies, knowing that these were unlikely to make an impact but sometimes made errors in couching their publications with western images.

Emma rounded off her talk by showing some very rare Japanese propaganda leaflets aimed at the Australian troops. These tried to create anxiety by painting the Americans as having sex with Australian women while their soldiers were far away, perhaps being horribly disfigured.

Rob Hurle, a research student undertaking an M.A. at ANU has recently returned from six months in Vietnam, researching his topic on the materials produced between 1945 (the end of the Pacific War) and 1954 by the Viet Minh.

He has found what remains of these materials in the National Library of Vietnam and the Museum of the Revolution in Hanoi. The publications were intended to teach the people and mould public opinion, especially in rural Vietnam, during the period of struggle with the French who were finally defeated. In effect, the publications were attempting to develop a national consciousness rather than be used as battle handouts. One of the most famous was The history of our country by Ho Chi Minh, written in 1941, and reprinted many many times. It told the story of how the French, Chinese and others had tried to invade Vietnam but had been repulsed.

Generally, the intention was for these materials to be circulated in the community and for those who could read to conduct public readings. Produced under very primitive conditions in the jungles of Vietnam, using stencils and other simple means, often with paper they made themselves, sometimes from cardboard, their preservation life seems limited.

Rob described the techniques of how he photographs these very fragile publications for his research.

In the end, the speakers demonstrated that in wartime, all governments deliberately set out to influence their own populations as well as the opposing side, using often highly ephemeral materials to do so. Unless a record is kept of such contemporary materials and methods chosen, we will lose an important historical perspective on war; one which we need to make sense of what is happening today.

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