Sergeant Ernest John Holland, whose features and urgent pointing finger had become familiar to the poster conscious citizens of Britain, was reported missing, believed killed, very soon after sitting for the photograph from which this poster was reproduced. The Ministry of Information, at whose Bloomsbury studios this and similar appeals were designed, asked the Air Ministry to send along three young airmen to act as models. Tests showed Sergeant Holland to be the most "photogenic," and the result was one of the best efforts in pictorial propaganda issued by the department. In civil life Sergeant Holland, who was only 22, was a stonemason in Birmingham. Sergeant Observer Ernest John Holland, of Birmingham, since reported "missing, believed killed," was the original of this striking poster. The aircraft he was in took off at 21:50 hrs from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, to attack the Luftwaffe airfield at Mėrignac near Bordeaux this being the home of Fw 200 long range maritime bombers of Kampfgeschwader 40.
This is one poster I know of that the person who posed for it--was a Sergeant in the US Army and after the war--became a very well-known Actor by the name of: John Agar. http://uki16.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/wwii_poster.jpg [video]http://uki16.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/wwii_poster.jpg[/video]
