173. FURTHER COMBAT PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES. Loud-
speakers were proved effective, especially after the Brittany operations
in Europe and in the last phases of the island operations in the Pacific.
Where fighting occurs along beaches, loudspeakers may be mounted on
boats and run along the shore. Tank-mounted loudspeakers can sometimes
be employed with results which are sensationally effective. When propa-
gandą personnel cannot be taken in the boat or tank, it is possible to arrange
a radio-telephone relay. The commander of the boat or tank describes the
situation in English to the propaganda broadcaster back at the command
post; when the propaganda man has the essential facts, the commander con-
nects the radio-telephone directly into the loudspeaker circuit, and the tanks
or boats begin speaking colloquial Japanese, German, Czech, Polish, or
whatever language may be required. Loudspeakers are useful in mopping
up; they avoid some of the waste effort and possible loss of life involved in
using infantry against an enemy whose position is already hopeless, and
they are more flexible than leaflets. Their range at the end of the second
World War was two miles.
Loudspeakers may, in the interests of humaneness, be made avail.
able to enemy prisoners for the purpose of reassuring other enemy soldiers
or fragmented units that further resistance involves loss of their lives. At
Saipan and Guam, brave Japanese individuals volunteered to help save Japa-
nese and American lives in this fashion. They spoke directly into the loud-
speaker with a language officer standing by to make sure that no treachery
was achieved. They were able to testify to good treatment. On occasion,
the prisoners were so effective that they were given leave to return to the
enemy lines, or to look for enemy units, for the purpose of bringing back
others. (The Chinese forces in the guerrilla areas used this technique with
audacity and astounding success. Lacking loudspeakers, they cut in on
field telephones, talked propaganda at the operators, left presents at iso-
lated sentry posts, invited exchanges of letters on the cause of the "im-
perialist" war, and shouted with megaphones.)
174. CONSOLIDATION. Leaflets, loudspeakers, posters, news-
papers and local broadcasting are effective in consolidating occupied terri-
tories. Decisive action immediately upon occupation, coupled with genuinely
effective supply and relief measures, will often prevent the appearance of
irregular resistance measures which would involve the local populace and
the occupying force in bitter antagonisms. The Germans promoted their own
defeat by the arrogant, haughty, and arbitrary way in which they addressed
conquered populations; a more genuine attempt to understand local popula-
tions would have involved the German army in fewer difficulties, and might
have avoided such measures as outright terror; but if the Germans had been
capable of such action, they would not have been Nazis and would not have
conquered the territories in the first place
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