Attention AFP Soldiers: a 1954 warning sheet on Huk ambush tactics

A 1954 English warning sheet addressed to soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and held with U.S. Information Agency posters (NAID 5730036). Seven Huk tactics are each answered by a red caution, beside a drawing of a snarling face over a jungle ambush, and the sheet ends "Don't get killed by carelessness."

What the sheet prints

Content note: the sheet includes a drawing of a snarling, wild-haired face over a jungle ambush scene. The archive shows it whole, as published.

The text is a numbered list. The archive describes seven tactics, each followed by advice printed in red, and a woodcut-style drawing beside them. A boxed mark at lower right reads "I&E DIV."

ATTENTION: AFP SOLDIERS

These are the NEW huk tactics:

1. HARASS LARGE AFP UNITS BY SMALL HUK UNITS. (BE ALERT AT ALL TIMES)

[...]

6. URGE CIVILIANS HIRED BY AFP AS GUIDES OR CARGADORES TO COMMIT SABOTAGE. (SCREEN CIVILIAN GUIDES AND CARGADORES THOROUGHLY)

7. AMBUSH RETURNING AFP VEHICLES AFTER OPERATION. (NEVER RELAX VIGILANCE)

Know these facts: DONT get KILLED by CARELESSNESS

[boxed mark] I&E DIV

An "I&E DIV" mark and a USIA file

FRAME's maker line is "U.S. Information Agency (Asian poster series)," and the rights line names the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Information Agency. The National Archives holds the sheet in Record Group 306 (NAID 5730036); the archive took its image copy from Wikimedia Commons. The record dates it 12 May 1954. On its face the only issuer is the boxed "I&E DIV" mark, which the record does not expand. FRAME files the source under its blurred category.

Practical advice, and a caricature

FRAME tags it fear appeal: the harm is staged as close, and the protection on offer is the vigilance the sheet prescribes. The archive files the themes as war and the military, and security and surveillance.

Taken line by line, the advice is practical: watch every direction, do not travel alone, check hired guides. Soldiers in a guerrilla war are entitled to that kind of plain instruction, and the list respects them enough to explain the enemy's method instead of just shouting about him.

The drawing is the part to question. A snarling, wild-haired face stands in for the enemy, and that face is a caricature with no feature a soldier could use to recognize anyone. Item 6 also teaches suspicion of the civilians who work alongside the army. Screening a guide is prudent; treating every civilian helper as a likely saboteur is a different habit, and the sheet does not draw the line between them. A 1955 sheet filed with the agency's posters, The Public Eye Is on You, carries the same "I&E DIV" mark and points the other way: it tells soldiers that civilians are watching them. More of the agency's Asian sheets are on the USIA posters abroad hub.