Someone Talked! (1942), Koerner's newspaper hand

Someone Talked! is a 1942 security poster signed Koerner that won the R. Hoe & Co. award in the National War Poster Competition held by Artists for Victory, the Council for Democracy and the Museum of Modern Art. A hand made of a newspaper reporting a torpedoed transport points at a man in a hat (NAID 513824).

What the sheet prints

A huge hand fills the sheet, and it is made of newsprint. The masthead and headlines report a ship sunk and lives lost on a torpedoed transport. The index finger points down at a small figure in a suit and hat, walking along with no idea he is the subject. Above, the title. Along the bottom, an unusually long credit line.

Someone Talked!

U.S. SHIP SUNK BY [...] 00 LIVES LOST ABOARD [T]ORPEDOED TRANSPORT

WINNER R. HOE & CO., INC. AWARD—NATIONAL WAR POSTER COMPETITION

HELD UNDER AUSPICES OF ARTISTS FOR VICTORY, INC.—COUNCIL FOR DEMOCRACY—MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Who made it

This sheet came out of a contest, not a federal art office. The credit line says it won the award given by R. Hoe & Co., a New York press manufacturer, in a national competition run by Artists for Victory, the Council for Democracy and the Museum of Modern Art. Hoe reproduced it, and Grinnell Lithographic printed it. The signature is Koerner; the record gives no first name. The National Archives holds it in Record Group 44.

How to read it

The design is clever: the newspaper that reports the sinking is also the hand that accuses. Its message is that loose talk among civilians reaches the enemy, and ships go down.

Some caution about shipping movements in wartime was reasonable. The poster goes further than caution. It does not show what was said, to whom, or how it reached a submarine. It shows a single ordinary man, singled out by an enormous finger, as the cause of a disaster. That is a fear appeal, and it trains readers to look at each other. The FRAME study of wartime rumor clinics shows how far that habit of watching speech could extend.

For other security sheets of 1942, see He's Watching You, the Seagram slogan poster, and Pipedown Soldier. The Office of War Information index lists more.