A Blow to the Axis is a 1943 U.S. Army official poster signed by Harold von Schmidt. A shirtless logger swings an axe into a trunk under the line "More lumber for the Army" (NAID 513717).
The picture and the words
The whole message is ten words and an axe. The archive describes a logger in a hat and blue jeans, stripped to the waist, driving his blade into a big tree. The Army eagle seal sits in the upper left corner. The title runs in red across the figure. The request runs in black underneath.
[imprint:] U. S. ARMY OFFICIAL POSTER
A Blow
to the Axis
MORE LUMBER FOR THE ARMY
[signature:] HAROLD VON SCHMIDT '43
[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1943-O-554163
Who issued it
The imprint says the Army, and the Government Printing Office job number dates the run to 1943. The painter signed and dated his work in the corner. The sheet does not say which mills or which camps it was meant for.
How to read it
The device is a pun. A swing of the axe is a "blow," and a blow lands on the Axis. That is a fair piece of craft. It takes a job that looks far from the front, cutting timber, and tells the man doing it that his work counts. The archive tags the method as plain folks and transfer: an ordinary worker, with the prestige of the Army seal set beside him.
Nothing on the sheet orders anyone to do anything. It is an appeal to free labor, and free labor answered it or did not. That is worth noticing in a year when the same government was printing much harsher material. Here the state asks, and the worker stays a person with a trade, not a part. Readers who want the wider print program can start at the Office of War Information hub and the poster index. Another 1943 production sheet, We Can Do It!, makes a similar move for a factory floor. The government that printed this appeal also ran a censorship office and signed Executive Order 9066; the Roosevelt administration essay covers all three.
Rights
The archive records the sheet as a public-domain U.S. government work, held by the National Archives in Record Group 44 and retrieved on 4 October 2026.
Sources
- FRAME object record, A blow to the Axis: more lumber for the Army, 1943. U.S. Army, artist Harold von Schmidt.
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, NAID 513717, local id 44-PA-268, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
