Poster, 'New Zealand Fights'

This Second World War poster was part of a series of posters published by the New Zealand Legation in Washington DC in about 1942. It would have been intended mainly for an American audience,to keep New Zealand's efforts in the Pacific theatre of war to the fore. The image in thisposter is possibly based on a soldier fighting in the North African desert during 1942.

The posterappears to be a simple statement about war in that it is not doing any overt jobs such as fundraising or recruiting. However, it is deeply persuasive and manipulative - a New Zealander literally fights with a machine gun - implying that New Zealand proactively pulls its weight on the world stage. Posters such as this would have been intended to raise morale and to encourage people's war efforts in general.