American Propaganda
Learn to use it now: Soda-acid hand fire extinguisher, 1946 US poster: War Department instruction sheet (WD Poster No

Learn to use it now: Soda-acid hand fire extinguisher

Learn to Use It Now (1946), War Department Poster No. 5-6 on the soda-acid extinguisher

War Department Poster No. 5-6 (1946) teaches the soda-acid hand fire extinguisher in four steps, with a caution and a report list. NAID 514851.

Techniques named on the archive record

Fear appeal
Date
1946
Made by
U.S. War Department
Medium
Poster
Country
United States
Regime
Truman Administration
NARA
NAID 514851; Record Group 44
Source
Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026
Source
Public domain (U.S. government work) U.S. War Department. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1245 (NAID 514851).

Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

Full record at propagandaarchive.org

WD Poster No. 5-6, printed in 1946, is a War Department instruction sheet for the soda-acid hand fire extinguisher. Four numbered panels show how to lift, carry, invert and aim it, with the headline "LEARN TO USE IT NOW" (NAID 514851).

Four steps and a caution

The archive describes a red brush-stroke field with the headline, four numbered panels showing the extinguisher being lifted, carried and used, and a black disc marked "Caution." The text is a manual on one sheet.

THIS EXTINGUISHER IS FOR YOUR PROTECTION

LEARN TO USE IT NOW

FOR FIRE ONLY SODA-ACID HAND FIRE EXTINGUISHER. For Use on wood, paper, rubbish, and other ordinary combustibles.

DO NOT USE on live electrical equipment or burning liquids. Effect is obtained by cooling and quenching.

HOW TO OPERATE

1. Lift extinguisher from hanger hook

2. Carry by ring top. Do not tip

3. Turn extinguisher upside down when ready to attack fire

4. Direct stream at base of flame

Caution

Protect from freezing. Do not add antifreeze solution or compounds

[...]

ARRANGE FOR CHARGING AND REPLACEMENT IN SERVICE IMMEDIATELY AFTER USE

WD Poster No. 5-6. Soda-Acid Hand Fire Extinguisher.

[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1946-O-719373

Distribution: Special.

Transcription in the FRAME record; the five-item list of faults to report and the blank call line are cut here. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514851, local id 44-PA-1245, Record Group 44.

Why an instruction sheet is in a propaganda archive

The archive is candid about it: this is mainly an instruction sheet, and the technique is faint. The one tag is fear appeal, for the "THIS EXTINGUISHER IS FOR YOUR PROTECTION" line and the stress on "NOW." The issuer is the U.S. War Department, classed as military; the audience is "Own forces"; the purpose is "Warn or inform." The themes are war and the military, and science and technology, and the event is recorded as the period after the Second World War.

The sheet earns its place as a baseline. It tells the reader what the device is for, what not to use it on, how to work it, and what to report if it is empty, damaged or tampered with. A blank line is left for a phone number to call. Next to the persuasion sheets elsewhere on this site, it asks for four steps in order.

The rest of the series

The archive holds six more "Learn to use it now" records from 1946, for carbon dioxide, carbon tetrachloride (two records), foam, foam pump tank, and water pump tank extinguishers. This page covers the soda-acid sheet as the example of the set. For a War Department poster of the same period that does try to persuade, see Something Money Can't Buy, the 1945 sheet on civilian service ribbons. The civil defense hub covers atomic-age messaging from 1945 to 1969.

Sources

  • FRAME object record, Learn to use it now: Soda-acid hand fire extinguisher, 1946. U.S. War Department (WD Poster No. 5-6). Source classed as openly identified.
  • U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-1245, NAID 514851, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).