Not Invincible

Prior to January 2, 1943, any and all pictures dealing with the ongoing world war, upon release in America, were positive, with an optimistic outlook, generally delivering the message, "America is doing great in this war! All we do is win, win, win! No problems here, everything looks great! We should be done in about a month or so!"

Until these pictures from Buna Beach were released, after the end of the six-month campaign.

This shocked and horrified the American public. And why wouldn't it have? After all, to be told that your armies are winning, having great success, doing perfectly, and then seeing this? A photo of dead American soldiers, having been shot down right on the water's edge? This is some troubling stuff to see.

This picture completely shifted the worldview of many Americans in the 1940s. To see a picture of their soldiers, dead, after several years of the government censoring any and all negative-looking pictures or reports was a very sobering thing.

The release of this picture was also a bit of a gamble when it came to war bonds. The hope was that, upon seeing this image, Americans would choose to buy more war bonds in order to support the soldiers and help them win. This did, in fact, work, and there was a tremendous upshoot in the sales of war bonds.

This image helps to send the message that you should not just always believe whatever you read, and instead try to find as much information on any topic as possible, because, if you don't, how can you know that you're not only getting one side of the story?