| Original caption: “Keep’em Rolling – Bell P-39 Aircobras” The United States Office of War Information employed a large staff of book and magazine designers during World War II to design cautionary and patriotic posters, survival manuals, news magazines for overseas distribution, and hundreds of other pieces of wartime propaganda. Young American Modernists had a unique opportunity to prove the viability of the new design, specifically as contrasted to the Heroic Realism of other countries’ graphics. American advertising agency N. W. Ayer and Son’s Art Director, Leo Lionni (May 5, 1910 – October 11, 1999), created a series of dynamic posters intended to motivate defense plant workers. The same photo is reproduced in the poster 4 times. The canton of stars is replaced with a photograph of a man working on the engine of a P-39. The Bell P-39 Airacobra was a fighter produced by Bell Aircraft of Buffalo for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was 1 of the principal American fighters in service when the United States entered combat. The P-39 was used by the Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily Soyuza Sovetskih Sotsialisticheskih Respublik (“Soviet Union Red Army Air Force”), which used it to score the highest number of kills attributed to any United States fighter type flown by any air force in any conflict. Other major users of the type included the Free French, the Royal Air Force, and the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force. The P-39 had an unusual layout, with the engine installed in the center fuselage behind the pilot, and driving a tractor propeller in the nose via a long shaft. It was also the 1st fighter fitted with a tricycle undercarriage. Although the mid-engine placement was innovative, the P-39 design was hindered by the absence of an efficient turbo-supercharger, which prevented it from performing well at high altitudes. For this reason, it was rejected by the Royal AIr Force (RAF) for use over western Europe but adopted by the USSR, where most air combat took place at medium and lower altitudes. Together with the derivative P-63 Kingcobra, the P-39 was 1 of the most successful fixed-wing aircraft manufactured by Bell. Married to an Italian Communist, Lionni left Fascist Italy for the United States in 1939. He went on to become a successful children’s book author after World War II. | |
| Image Filename | wwii2422.jpg |
| Image Size | 776.98 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1500 x 2015 |
| Photographer | Leo Lionni |
| Photographer Title | Office of Emergency Management |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | January 1, 1941 |
| Location | |
| City | Washington |
| State or Province | District of Columbia |
| Country | United States |
| Archive | University of North Texas Digital Library |
| Record Number | Posters WW2 Lionni 3 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database