Depicting Japanese as apes was common in American war propaganda in the effort to dehumanize the enemy and portray them as blood-thirsty savages worthy of extermination. This image appeared in the New York Times in April 1943 in response to the Japanese execution of captured American fliers. The original caption, taken from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Mikado, read "Let the punishment fit the crime." Note that it is "Civilization" that is armed with the pistol of vengence.