The Jig is up! If you keep buying war bonds is a 1943 Treasury campaign poster built on a letter puzzle: J, I and G hold the rest of the names Japan, Italy and Germany, under caricatured heads of a Japanese officer, a Mussolini-type figure and a Hitler-type figure. A line credits the idea to J.L. Callahan as a second prize.
Three letters, three countries
Content note: one of the three heads is a racial caricature of a Japanese officer.
The pun carries the poster. "Jig" is spelled in three letters, and inside each letter the archive reads the rest of a country's name, so J becomes Japan, I becomes Italy and G becomes Germany. Above them sit three caricatured heads: a Japanese officer with round glasses and bared teeth, a scowling figure of the Mussolini type, and a figure of the Hitler type in a cap with a swastika.
The
JIG
IS UP!
IF YOU KEEP Buying
WAR BONDS...-
(inside the letters:) APAN / TALY / ERMANY
2nd Prize Suggested By J.L. Callahan Dept. 430
Hodgins (signature, lower right)
An idea credited to Dept. 430
One small line is the unusual part. It says the idea was a second-prize suggestion by J.L. Callahan of "Dept. 430." Which contest, employer or plant is not recorded. The signature, read as Hodgins, is marked uncertain by the archive. The record files the maker as a U.S. Treasury Department campaign, with issuer type "State" and purpose "Fundraise."
Two leaders and a race
The archive tags name-calling, and it notes that the leaders are reduced to grotesques. The difference among the three heads is worth naming. The Italian and German figures are recognizable types of particular dictators. The archive identifies the Japanese head only as an officer, with round glasses and bared teeth, and says its features are racialised. Two enemies are mocked as regimes and one as a people.
The sheet is in this site's war bonds poster gallery, under the World War II war bonds hub. The anti-Japanese propaganda hub gathers posters that drew the Japanese enemy this way, and the anti-Nazi propaganda hub gathers those aimed at the German regime.
Sources
- FRAME object record, The Jig is Up If You Keep Buying War Bonds, 1943. U.S. Treasury Department campaign.
- Wikimedia Commons, The Jig is Up If You Keep Buying War Bonds, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work), U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
