A Wise Old Owl (1943), the War Department's rhyming security poster

Silence means security is a 1943 War Department poster from the Adjutant General's Office, labeled the "Owl" security poster. A wide-eyed owl sits on a branch at night behind an oak leaf printed with a rhyme that ends "Soldier . . . . . be like that Old Bird!" (NAID 513744).

The rhyme on the leaf

A brown owl with wide eyes perches on a branch against a night sky. Most of its body is hidden behind a large orange oak leaf, and the leaf carries the text, eight short lines of rhyme. A blue band across the bottom gives the slogan.

A wise Old Owl

sat in an oak

The more he saw

the less he spoke

The less he spoke

the more he heard

Soldier . . . . .

be like that Old Bird!

★ SILENCE MEANS SECURITY ★

[imprint: W. D., A.G.O. "OWL" SECURITY POSTER]

[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943--O--514854]

Issuer and date

The imprint reads "W. D., A.G.O.," which the archive gives as the War Department's Adjutant General's Office, and the sheet names itself the "Owl" security poster. The Government Printing Office job number dates it to 1943. The record names no artist and gives no print run.

A gentle request to soldiers

The archive calls the technique faint and tags transfer: the owl's old reputation for wisdom is lent to a request to say little. That is a fair reading. Compared with the period's grave crosses and enemy ears, this is a gentle sheet. It offers no threat and no villain, only a rhyme and a single word of address, "Soldier."

That address matters. The poster speaks to soldiers, people already under military discipline whose duties could include real secrets. Asking a soldier to keep quiet about what he sees is a different thing from asking every civilian to distrust conversation. The rhyme also makes a point in favor of listening: the owl hears more because he talks less. Nothing on the sheet tells the soldier to report anyone.

The War Department used the same slogan on a 1942 photographic poster showing a member of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, Silence Means Security. Other security sheets on this site include A Careless Word... Another Cross and He's Watching You. The rumor clinics case study treats a related campaign that answered rumors in print instead of asking for silence.