In this post I look at the artworks of events at Dunkirk in 1940. Some would have been sketched or observed on the day, others were painted with eye-witness reports and photographs. Many were finished in a studio in the weeks and months after.
On 10 May 1940, Germany invaded France and the Low Countries, pushing the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), along with French and Belgian troops, back to the French port of Dunkirk. A huge rescue, Operation ‘Dynamo’, was organised by the Royal Navy to get the troops off the beaches and back to Britain. ‡
‘Dynamo’ began on 26 May. Strong defences were established around Dunkirk, and the Royal Air Force sent all available aircraft to protect the evacuation. Over 800 naval vessels of all shapes and sizes helped to transport troops across the English Channel. The last British troops were evacuated on 3 June, with French forces covering their escape. Churchill and his advisers had expected that it would be possible to rescue only 20,000 to 30,000 men, but in all 338,000 troops, a third of them French, were rescued. Ninety thousand remained to be taken prisoner and the BEF left behind the bulk of its tanks and heavy guns. All resistance in Dunkirk ended at 9.30am on 4 June. ‡
When I saw the Richard Eurich picture below, the sea was so well painted it looked like glass. It was at an exhibition in the Queens House, Greenwich. It is a fantastic picture that viewed in a book or on the internet doesn’t comprehend. It was also used by the Navy as its Christmas card for 1940.
Richard Eurich – Withdrawal from Dunkirk, 1940
Charles Cundall – The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, 1940
John Spencer-Churchill – Dunkirk from the Bray Dunes, 1940
Below is a painting by Wilkinson who to my eye is the master of painting seascapes. He has a wonderful repertoire of boats and the lighting in this painting is a marvel. Though beautiful, it also shows the hellish chaos of the day.
Norman Wilkinson – The Little Ships at Dunkirk, 1940
The Little Ships at Dunkirk: June 1940, by Norman Wilkinson. The gently shelving beaches meant that large warships could only pick up soldiers from the town’s East Mole, a sea wall which extended into deep water, or send their boats on the beaches to collect them. To speed up the process, the British Admiralty appealed to the owners of small boats for help. These became known as the ‘little ships’. ‡
Newspaper with the small announcement under ‘War Artists’.
On Thursday, 7th March, 1940, three days before his 37th birthday, it was announced in the British papers that Edward Bawden and Barnett Freeman were to become Official War Artists on behalf of the British War Office.
In the first days of April, Ardizzone (Edward) and Bawden took rooms for a while in the hotel Commerce in Arras, fussed over by a shared batman. They enjoyed the local wine and hospitality, before being billeted separately. Arras was dour, small and grey, It was also the GHQ for the British Army in France. †
Arras in France is just over fifty miles away on a map, from April to May the retreat to Dunkirk was rapid and not an inspiring start for a war artist. In this short time Bawden said he was passed from regiments and groups rapidly as none of them wanted the alien burden of an artist to deal with, but being on the move a lot may have prepared his sketching style ready for Dunkirk where rapid copy was needed.
On his way to Dunkirk, Bawden has rolled up his paintings in a cylindrical tin which he clutched under his arm. †
Approaching the port, he ditched all his equipment except his art materials (what would the Germans have done with them?) Marching into the town, they ran the gauntlet of ragged French soldiers jeering them. It discomforted him, as did the looters sweeping like locusts through abandoned houses. †
Edward Bawden – Dunkirk: Embarkation of Wounded, May 1940
Edward Bawden – Dunkirk – The New World, 1940
Edward Bawden – Boys Serving Coffee, Dunkirk, 1940.
He reached the quayside in the company of a Canadian major, and they watched with dismay the frantic self-preservation of a group of British generals on the Dunkirk quayside, the swagger sticks pointing at likely boats bound for England. He turned to the major, with a wry smile. ‘Rats always go first’ he said. †
Edward Bawden – Dunkirk – Embarkation of Wounded, 1940
Edward Bawden – The Quay at Dunkirk, 1940.
In the watercolour above, notice the fires along the jetty. The men in the foreground descending into a air-raid shelter and the bomb craters on the ground. The air raid shelter is likely to be the same one below, but in the chaos who could tell.
Edward Bawden – The Entrance to an Air Raid Shelter, Dunkirk, 1940
Edward Bawden – In an Air Raid Shelter, Dunkirk: Bombs are dropping, 1940
† The Sketchbook War by Richard Knott, 2013 978-0752489230
‡ Imperial War Museum – Dunkirk
The Dunkirk Memorial stands at the entrance to the British War Graves Section of Dunkirk Town Cemetery. The artistic memorial is a giant etched glass window by John Hutton.
Hutton was asked by Philip Hepworth of the Imperial Graves Commission to design a window. The design shows not only the evacuation from the beaches but also the aerial bombardment and fighting in the sky and at sea. The memorial window was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957
The Phoney War was an eight-month period at the start of World War II in 1939 during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany’s Saar district. During this time the Nazi’s had invaded Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. On 10 May 1940, eight months after Britain and France had declared war on Germany, Nazi troops marched into Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, marking the end of the Phoney War and the start of Germany being an advancing danger to the British. Some months later the Germans took control of Guernsey and Jersey. The British activities in the war were mostly at sea with the Navy disabling German shipping in an economic blockade and the troops on the mainland of Europe were drawn back to the retreat in Dunkirk.
Trafalgar Square, October 1941
It was around this time that the National Gallery collection of paintings was to be evacuated out of London as from September 1940 to May 1941 the Blitz happened, by mistake.
The first German attack on London actually occurred by accident. On the night of August 24, 1940, Luftwaffe bombers aiming for military targets on the outskirts of London drifted off course and instead dropped their bombs on the centre of London destroying several homes and killing civilians. Amid the public outrage that followed, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, believing it was a deliberate attack, ordered Berlin to be bombed the next evening.
About 40 British bombers managed to reach Berlin and inflicted minimal property damage. However, the Germans were utterly stunned by the British air-attack on Hitler’s capital. It was the first time bombs had ever fallen on Berlin. Making matters worse, they had been repeatedly assured by Luftwaffe Chief, Hermann Göring, that it could never happen. A second British bombing raid on the night of August 28/29 resulted in Germans killed on the ground. Two nights later, a third attack occurred. German nerves were frayed. The Nazis were outraged. In a speech delivered on September 4, Hitler threatened, “When the British Air Force drops two or three or four thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will in one night drop 150-, 230-, 300- or 400,000 kilograms. When they declare that they will increase their attacks on our cities, then we will raze their cities to the ground. We will stop the handiwork of those night air pirates, so help us God!”
Beginning on September 7, 1940, and for a total of 57 consecutive nights, London was bombed. The decision to wage a massive bombing campaign against London and other English cities would prove to be one of the most fateful of the war. Up to that point, the Luftwaffe had targeted Royal Air Force airfields and support installations and had nearly destroyed the entire British air defence system. Switching to an all-out attack on British cities gave RAF Fighter Command a desperately needed break and the opportunity to rebuild damaged airfields, train new pilots and repair aircraft. “It was,” Churchill later wrote, “therefore with a sense of relief that Fighter Command felt the German attack turn on to London”. †
The feeling was it was unwise to have the National Galleries collection separate in locations as one location would save on guarding the works and help keep the location more secret and avoid any potential losses of work in transportation or admin. The curators could also monitor the condition of the paintings too.
One serious proposal was for the paintings to be evacuated by ship to Canada. But the vulnerability of the ships to U-boat attack worried the Gallery’s director, Kenneth Clark. He went to see Winston Churchill who immediately vetoed the idea: ‘Hide them in caves and cellars, but not one picture shall leave this island’.
The danger of shipping was just as worrying as the dangers on the dockland. One chance bomb could wipe out the whole collection in a dockland warehouse while waiting to be loaded.
Martin Pritchard – Manod Quarry, 2008
Manod Quarry, 1940s
The Welsh quarry of Manod was chosen as the best location. After the quarries entrance was widened with explosive blasts so that trucks could drive inside, the next task was to build man structure inside to house the collection.
Lee McGrath – Inside Manod Quarry, 2018
These brick buildings (like bungalows) were built inside the cave quarry with roofs and picture racks. There were thermostat and humidity controllers to stop the paintings becoming damp or suffering changes in temperature. By the end of the Blitz the whole collection was now housed in the cave.
Manod Quarry – Inside the Art Bungalows housing the National Collection.
It had long been known that paintings were happiest in conditions of stable humidity and temperature. But it had never been possible to monitor a whole collection in such controlled circumstances before. Valuable discoveries were made during this time which were to influence the way the collection was displayed and cared for once back in London after the war.
It was also an opportunity for Martin Davies, the Assistant Keeper in charge of the paintings in Wales, to complete his research for new editions of the National Gallery’s permanent collection catalogues. ‡
Manod Quarry – Inside the Art Bungalows housing the National Collection.
The precautions were wise as the National Gallery was hit by nine bombs between October 1940 and April 1941.
The collection returned to London by the end of 1945 but the caves were held as government property in case they were needed during the Cold War.
The curious thing about the nations art during wartime was it didn’t all get put together. The National Gallery had the quarry in Manod but the National Portrait Gallery moved their collection to Mentmore House, in Buckinghamshire. The Gallery evacuated its portraits to Mentmore’s outbuildings.
The Tate Gallery had moved their works, to a disused stations on the Piccadilly London Underground network.
Photograph of a letter to Robin Ironside with the key to the Piccadilly Underground storeroom from Neil MacLaren.
This post started looking at the difference between the Dunkirk painting and the print, but I thought it was also a good excuse to talk about the Edward Bawden ‘War Artist’ book. One of the cheaper Bawden books to buy it is full of Edward’s letters home with 38 of his war paintings.
Edward Bawden – Dunkirk, 1986
Above is the print of the Dunkirk bombings. Below is the original painting, but there is 40 years difference between the pair.
Painted by Edward Bawden during the shelling of Dunkirk in May 1940, the watercolour shows the interior of a bar and the soldiers hiding from shots under the tables. The bar ironically is called Au Nouveau Monde, ‘In The New World’. Paintings of Dunkirk fascinate me as it was such chaos it would have taken real nerve to paint at all.
Edward Bawden – Dunkirk, 1940
Bawden marched into Dunkirk with the retreating troops through lines of jeering French. The generals had already left by then, as Bawden noted: ‘Well, the rats go first”. Later he said: “By temperament I am a pacifist. War horrifies me, it horrified me then…. I hated the big bangs. No one knew what was happening , and I was just tossed about like a bad penny. Nobody wanted a war artist. Every day I got shoved off to a new unit.”
At Dunkirk he didn’t head for the beach and the rescue boats but to the docks where he holed up for two days making notes of chaotic smoke-filled scenes as thousands of troops tried to get away under constant strafing and shellfire. Eventually a boat came near enough to scramble aboard and he found it full of exhausted men ‘lying in heaps everywhere, some only half dressed.
Edward Bawden – War Artist prospectus, 1986
In 1989 Bawden released a series of his war letters, edited by Ruari Mclean. Edward Bawden War Artist and His Letters Home 1940-45. The book was due to come out in 1986 in a different format, a wide landscape book, signed and limited edition published by the Hurtwood Press. But the project stalled and ended up being rekindled and published in a landscape format in 1989.
Above is the original prospectus for the 1986 book that was never produced in this format. It would have looked much like a Fleece Press book.
To accompany the 1986 book would have been two new lithographs, but these were released without the book and then used as the front and back covers of the 1989 dust jacket. The Hurtwood Press published Among the Marsh Arabs, and Dunkirk in 1986.
Edward Bawden – Among the Marsh Arabs, 1986
Below are the front and back views of the 1989 book with the lithographs used as artworks.
Roland Vivian Pitchforth was 44 when war was declared. He was one of the few artists to get the job done. He painted every type of scene you could think of and accurately.
The spotlight after the war fell on more abstract artists. I blame gallery curators who want to make an easy (lazy?) link between the wars; the abstract paintings of Paul Nash of the First World War next to the paintings of Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore’s Second. In this funk I think Roland Vivian Pitchforth lost out, as did Eric Ravilious until his work was reviewed again in the 1970s. I think it is time these works are championed.
After almost a year of bureaucratic wrangling with the start up of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, Pitchforth was made an official war artist.
Kenneth Clark was chairman of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee. That committee was part of the Ministry of Information. Clark would describe the ministry and its role succinctly, if rather negatively, in his autobiography:
It was said to contain 999 employees… [Its] large staff had been recruited to deal with three or four different objects. The first, and most defensible, was censorship; the second the provision of news; the third a feeble attempt at propaganda through various media; and the fourth to provide a kind of wastepaper-basket into which everyone could throw their grievances and their war-winning proposals.
The official role of war art had been, after much difficulty, established during the First World War. (In part, the idea had succeeded because the Germans had already developed such a scheme of their own, and the English felt a need to rival their enemy.) The essential purpose was that artists should provide a record of the war; and in some instances, (though it was not required, or expected) they might create something beyond reportage or official portraits – works of art in their own right. †
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Post Office Buildings, 1941
From 1940 to 1945, Pitchforth served as an official war artist for the Ministries of Information, Home Security, Supply and for the Admiralty. In March 1940, he was given a brief to depict the work of the Air Raid
Precaution (ARP) organisation and in December secured a six month
appointment with the Ministries of Home Security and Supply.
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Repairing Telephone Cables, 1941
In a series of pencil, watercolour, oil and lithograph pieces, he depicted ARP training, war damage, military production and naval scenes. Many of these were singled out for praise by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC) and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1941. He also painted a series of London war damage scenes including a number of paintings of the House of Commons in 1941
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Repairing Telephone Cables, 1941
His artist’s eye picked out the many bleak and surreal sights on London’s bomb sites. In March 1941, he described sketching damaged lift shafts open to the elements: “They look like dead prehistoric animals lying
over the jagged walls.”
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – The City Temple Church, London, EC4, 1941
Pitchforth subsequently specialised in coastal scenes, joined several naval convoys to Gibraltar and the Azores and produced paintings on RAF test flights and maintenance subjects.
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Loading Stores for Italy at Algiers, 1944
Commissioned in October 1943 as a temporary captain in the Royal Marines, Pitchforth was attached to the Royal Navy and in 1945 was sent by South Eastern Command to record the naval campaigns to retake Burma and Ceylon. During the British assault on Rangoon, he assisted in the camouflaging of his group’s amphibious craft. He captured the events in a series of paintings of Colombo Harbour and in The First British troops in Rangoon (1945). At war’s end, Pitchforth acquired a lung infection and spent 1945-1946 convalescing in South Africa (he still managed to exhibit at Wildenstein’s Gallery) before returning to London in 1948.
It is not surprising that you can still find the locations of Pitchforth’s paintings in London, but due to bombing and redevelopment some of the shops have changed shape.
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Sunday Morning, Great Titchfield Street, London, 1941
The Street Today, Google Maps.
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Chamber of the House of Commons, Bomb Damage, 1940–1945
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – AFS Practice with a Trailer-pump : On the banks of the Serpentine, London, 1941
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Fire-hose Practice in St James’s Park, London, 1941
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Protection Pits for Dispersed Aircraft, Lee-on-Solent, 1941
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – A New Runway, Lee-on-Solent, 1941
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – A Swordfish Aircraft Getting Ready to Take Off, 1941
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – A Royal Observer Corps Post, Rottingdean, 1944
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – An AA Battery, 1943
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – WAAFs Packing Parachutes, 1940
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Raw Materials for 4.5 Anti-aircraft Shells, 1941
Roland Vivian Pitchforth – Night Transport, 1940
† Peter Stansky & William Abrahams – London’s Burning – Life, Death & Art in the Second World War. 1994. p16
In my searches over the internet I discovered the photographs of Marc Wilson and his project The Last Stand.
Between 2010 and 2014, Marc Wilson photographed the images that make up The Last Stand. Reflecting the histories, military conflict and the memories held in the landscape itself they expose the effect of the Second World War on the coastlines of the British Isles and Northern Europe. The decaying structures of military defence.
Over these four years Marc has travelled 23,000 miles to 143 locations to capture these images along the coastlines of the UK, The Channel Islands, Northern & Western France, Denmark, Belgium and Norway.
With each sheet of film costing nearly £7 to buy and process (and then a further £25 to produce each high resolution scan for printing) I photograph only what is needed. For the 42 final images from the 75 locations visited I have used just under 200 sheets of film. So an average of three shots at each location, not many when you have travelled over 1,000 miles to get somewhere. †
Marc Wilson – Brean Down, Somerset, England. 2012
Marc Wilson – Stanga-Head, Unst, Shetland, Scotland. 2013
Marc Wilson – Lossiemouth II, Moray, Scotland, 2011
Marc Wilson – Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. 2012
Marc Wilson – Crammond Island, Fife, Scotland. 2012
Marc Wilson – Portland, Dorset, England. 2011
Marc Wilson – Findhorn, Morray. Scotland. 2011
Marc Wilson – Wissant II, Sainte-Marguerite-sur-mer, Upper Normandy, France. 2012
Marc Wilson – Widemouth Bay, Cornwall, England. 2011
Marc Wilson – Saint-Palais-sur-mer II, Charente-Maritime , France. 2014
Marc Wilson – Wissant I, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012
† Phil Coomes – The Last Stand, BBC 4 February 2013
In the copy of The Listener from March 1941, there is a piece by the artist Keith Henderson on his first year as a War Artist with the Air Ministry.
Before any artists had been appointed by the Air Ministry, William Rothenstein had requested permission to make portraits of airmen at bases in Scotland. Rothenstein pre-empted Keith Henderson, the official artist, in working at Leuchars base, which meant there was nothing for Henderson to do; Rothenstein was often referred to in print as an “official artist”, although at this time, it was not the case.
Henderson was one of the first two artists, alongside Paul Nash, appointed as a full-time salaried artist to the Air Ministry by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, WAAC. Rothenstein’s work ended up with Henderson having to concentrate on ground crew, aircraft hangars, repair shops and runways for subjects. Although the painting ‘An Improvised Test of an Under-carriage’ provoked fury in the Air Ministry and contributed to Henderson’s six-month contract not being extended, it was among the artworks shown at the first WAAC ‘Britain at War’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in May 1941. The painting shows a man jumping up and down on the wing of a Lockheed-Hudson to test the undercarriage.
Keith Henderson was a Scottish painter who worked in both oils and watercolours, and who is known for his book illustrations and his poster work. He had a long professional career that included periods as a war artist in both the First World War, in which he served in the trenches, and in the Second World War. The muted colours and tones of his work remind me of Eric Ravilious, it is that style too, but Henderson’s work was between Ravilious and Christopher R. W. Nevinson.
Keith Henderson – An Air View of Montrose, Angus, 1940.
War-time notes of a Peaceful Artist.
Turning over the pages of a diary that I began last April on being appointed one of the two official artists to the Air Ministry, I now read over passages here and there with reminiscent amusement and, yes, a certain genuine pleasure too. During the last war I kept a diary, not only while with my regiment but after being seconded to Intelligence with the XV Corps Squadron, and then Fifth Army Headquarters. The new diary, the one for this war, begins:
Keith Henderson – A North-East Coast Aerodrome, 1940.
April 19, 1940. Started with Helen from home yesterday evening towards the east coast, leaving snow on our Lochaber mountains and daffodils under the wintry trees. Curlews calling from every direction. Tomorrow…
April 20. This my first day of official duty has been a hideous failure. A guard at the aerodrome entrance, I drive in superior and nonchalant, returning the sentry’s salute. On to the Orderly Room. Adjutant, Commanding Officer, Intelligence Officers. Nervous as a cat, I hope they will not see through my calm affability. Cigarettes and a stroll towards the Mess. The ante-room is enormous: African buck, markhor, and other trophies of the chase branch out one above the other towards a lofty ceiling. The leather armchairs are so ample that officers reclining in them appear to be asleep. Crowds of others standing about, all very much alike. They observe that the Commanding Officer has a guest. Introductions, a glass of sherry. Presently through swing doors into the Mess Room, which is enormous. Lunch with one of the Wing Commanders, very friendly. But the afternoon, oh, the afternoon was hell. During a conducted tour round the hangars l saw nothing whatever that I particularly wanted to paint. The wind was hideously cold, the light bleak, and I had an exhausting stomach-ache. Violent and continuous noises of engines being tested. No ideas.
Keith Henderson – Night: An Air Gunner in Auction Turret, 1940.
April 22. Serene spring weather. All has gone well, so well that I’have had to steady myself with thoughts of the horror of the conquered in Poland, Norway, and elsewhere. A man’s philosophy is usually in accord’ with his circumstances, both interior and exterior. Optimists do not have stomach-aches. Mine had vanished. From the high control tower at least three marvellous possibilities appeared. Two sinister and monstrous bombers were awkwardly entering their hangar. They have the eyes, the mouths, legs, bodies, wings of elephantine obscene. insects, but stupid insects. Prod them and they will not move away or retaliate. There is no mind within. They are utterly vacant. I must paint them like that. How lucky am I to have been appointed to this delightful work.
April 24. Three pictures have now been begun. I am using a monochrome mixture of white, yellow-ochre, and a little raw umber. This will make any alterations to the composition easier before a more or less rapid final painting begins.
Keith Henderson – Study of Royal Air Force Machine Gunmen, 1939.
May 5. From the ground this strangely retarded spring is at last clearly visible. Trees are in bud and millions of small dowers give an impression of Chaucerian gaiety. Up in the air scarcely any of this tiny brilliance shows yet. There are just stretches of moorland and of ploughland in various shades of pale buff and maroon, with here a diaper dressing of lime, there a flutter of gulls, a few sombre forestry plantations and many lesser woods wherein only’an occasional pale willow is conspicuous, old stone farmhouses with their haystacks in rows, a ruin near a newer castellated mansion, small lochs all silvery grey, an appearance of desertion far and wide. From the air the earth has no flowers. Eastward is the wonderful coast-line, red sandstone mostly, fretted away into natural arches and pinnacles. The jade green sea is as lovely from above as I remember it in the last war. Those white festooned breakers along the Beaches seem without sound.
Keith Henderson – An Improvised Test of an Undercarriage, 1940.
May 6. Today I tried the experiment of taking up more than mere notebooks. I took a canvas, a dozen brushes and a full set palette. The Palette was disastrous. Within a few moments of taking off, I noticed Indian red on my sleeve. The observer crept forward to the navigator’s seat where I was, and shouted into my ear, ‘Have you got everything you want?’ ‘Yes, thank you’ I shouted back, ‘but you have got some ultramarine on your cheek. I remembered noticing an air gunner holding the palette at a dangerously acute angle as he handed it to someone. And worse. Nearly all the so carefully arranged large clumps of paint round the palette’s edge were, I saw now with dismay, gone. They had evidently slipped off or been smeared off. But I could not be Without them. They must be found, scraped up penuriously from the floor or anywhere. Then I saw the legs of the air gunner. My precious cadmium red! The observer, the pilot even, all were strangely daubed handed round proved in that cramped space more distributive than cleansing. Their hands, their faces, their flying kit were crimson, blue, white, black, yellow, or tartan. It was a great success.
Keith Henderson – Camouflage Hangars and Gas Gong, 1940.
May 7. My bedroom at the aerodrome is quite comfortable. I shall never forget my astonishment when an efficient batman offered me early tea. I was then getting up at 4 am. for a dawn picture. This morning it had to be 3.30. As we rose into the upper air through ground mist three swans also rose through the ground mist. They Hew north. I found myself thinking: ‘Where exactly is the centre of the Universe?’ And I answered myself: ‘ Wherever you happen to be at the moment’. In mid air ’the centre of the Universe is definitely not on the earth’s surface. All who fly will agree about that. Suppose yourself flying west. You wish to turn south. The great rigid wings slant over. But for all the planetary pull of gravitation, it is not the aircraft which appears to be askew. Not at all. The earth on the other hand has gone mad. It has heaved itself up, sea and all, steeply into space, a huge menacing wave that will not subside until the dial shows the wings horizontal. They will be in a moment. Now they are. Now the earth is itself again, flat, detached inhuman, without laughter or any birds singing.
May 8. A letter from the Air Ministry. I wrote some time ago ‘asking for permission to go to Narvik or Stavanger on a bombing raid’. The Air Commodore at Whitehall answers, ‘Under present conditions it is quite out of the question that you should visit Norway‘. Right. Well, that exonerates me. I am certainly not going to do fancy war pictures from photographs and descriptions.
Keith Henderson – Loading Gantry for Pluto, 1940.
May 9. Home for another short rest, tired. No, not depressed. There must be no regretting all that I have not accomplished, but simply a ‘proud delight in all that I have accomplished. Let me be luxuriously lazy. For several days on end I need not do anything. I loll in this white window Seat looking down the length of the room towards Aunt Nell‘s two rococo mirrors on either side of the Chinese lacquer cabinet. One of the dogs in the farmyard barks. I love the faint pink, wallpaper with its bunches of blue-grey and white flowers. I am happy. I think I have been asleep. I must go and see how things are coming on in the walled garden.
May 11. Back at the aerodrome. The usual crowds assemble as soon as I set up my easel for a large picture to be called ‘Repairs to a Bomber’. Since last night when I came round to see that all was in order, the men have produced, in the most frightful raw flat yellow, on the side of the particular aircraft that I am painting, a huge figure of Donald Duck. They want me to put this into the picture, but I really cannot. It would spoil the whole thing. The effort to find words that might show them why it would spoil the whole thing is almost too much during working hours.
Keith Henderson – Dawn: Leaving for North Sea Patrol, 1940.
May 12. On other machines they have now painted other grotesques, including the wholly inexcusable Popeye. A sergeant pilot says that these effigies will ‘cheer up the Jerries’. And this while the news becomes more serious than any news ever announced in the world before.
Keith Henderson – Wings over Scotland, 1940.
May 16. While I was touching in the ‘horns’ of the bomber a young pilot who had been standing beside me asked: ‘How do you begin a picture?’ My answer, which was regrettably long, failed to give satisfaction. I could feel that. There was silence; and then – would I come for a flit with him? When? This afternoon? Well, I did rather want to get on with that thing of the coastline…. He went off at once and came back to say that all had been fixed. We were to go in the Jewel. On my way to the Mess I reflected that a machine called the Jewel sounded pleasantly airworthy. Later I discovered my mistake. Not Jewel, but Dual, a machine with dual control. ‘You must take a turn’, he offered. I made no answer, doubtful as to what this implied. When the parachutes and Mae Wests and other paraphernalia for all concerned are collected we drive across to the Dual. The engines have of course been sending out dust gales to the rear for a good while. We heave ourselves in. Before taking off, the pilot looks round and holds up his right thumb. The rest of the crew hold up theirs. All is well. The noise increases, is doubled, trebled, deafening in spite of ear plugs. We are moving forward, moving more swiftly. We have left the ground. As soon as we are at the right height I begin sketching. The time goes by. I muse vaguely about art meanwhile. Art is more than national, more than international; it is supernatural-magic-always* has been since cave days, always will be. There. The drawings are finished. We may return. Presently the pilot nudges my elbow. I am sitting on the learner’s seat close beside him. What is it now? What? He points to the controls and points at me. Does he mean that I am to ‘take a turn’? I hesitate. His reply to my very sensible hesitation is to cross his arms and lean heavily with his head on one side as if sound asleep. Something must be done. I seize the crescent. He is awake again, ready. We have lost height. I pull back. We rise, rise higher. The North Sea is empty of shipping. No, there’s a distant convoy. So it is. This is rather delightful. At a pinch, if the pilot were to become a casualty, could I carry on ? I might, I really might. But I certainly could not land. I should just have to go on and on, flying round the world indefinitely.
Keith Henderson – Repairs to a Bomber, 1941.
May 23. Abbeville fallen. Boulogne fallen. Well, as to our next move, that rests with the Higher Command, not with me. Defeat ? That is an idea that I’ve never even glanced at. Have any of us ? Probably not. Better not. In the evening I have just finished a life of Wallenstein, and am beginning Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s Letters.
June 13. At home fér another rest. More carrots sown and the artichokes, thinned out to three feet apart, should do well. The Germans are only sixteen miles from Paris.
Keith Henderson – Gas Practice in a Hangar, 1940.
June 14. The first flowers of Campanula Carpatica have appeared, and Helen this afternoon made a delicious cinnamon cake. All down the steep brae towards the river there are foxgloves in full bloom. While raking beechmast into heaps on either side of the drive, I have been watching the cows. They are let out from the byre. They walk very slowly for about five yards, looking straight ahead. Then one of them stops. Gradually they all stop. Why? Two of them move slowly forward a few steps. A long pause. A few others follow and stop again. Another long pause. Do they want to go anywhere in particular? Why need they? A strawberry Ayrshire slowly turns her head. She looks at me for a long while without interest. Then she turns away, having learned nothing. They have nothing to do all day long. A black Galloway, with bracken in her tail, sits down, slowly and heavily. Five minutes later a polled Angus sits down, slowly and heavily. At the end of half-an-hour they have all sat down. Absolute peace here, and news has just come that the Germans have entered Paris.
Keith Henderson – Ascent of the Met Balloon, 1940.
So the diary goes on – a continual contrast between busy warlike aerodromes and exquisite days on leave. That was almost a year ago. How angry we felt then and how obstinate. Today, even more angry and more obstinate, we are surely, I think, feeling much more hopeful. –
The painting ‘An Improvised Test of an Under-carriage’ provoked fury in the Air Ministry and his six month contract as a war artist had come to an end. His work was exhibited at the time but unlike Eric Ravilious his work has more or less been ignored.
On my bookcases I have a rotation of new and old books that I face out, depending on the designer. Some John Minton or Edward Bawden dust jackets, or pamphlets. But the book I normally put out, for the absolute beauty of the illustration is Roof Over Britain. It is illustrated by Abram Games and for the beauty of it, it is normally to be found for under five pounds. I have contemplated getting another to frame on the wall.
The topic is of the Anti-aircraft defences during the Second World War. It is an odd thing how patriotic the art of WW2 makes one feel. The lines of the soldiers face are almost like a German statue, it is all very modern.
The Front Cover of ‘Roof Over Britain’, 1943.
Born in 1914 to Latvian and Russo-Polish parents in Whitechapel, East London, Abram Games joined the Army in 1939 and was quickly designated the role of draughtsman. By 1942 he had been promoted to captain and was the only Official War Poster Artist for the rest of the Second World War.
Abram Games in his studio, 1941
After the war his freelance career went from strength to strength with commissions for the Festival of Britain, the United Nations, Shell, Guinness and the BBC. After a career spanning over 60 years, Games died in 1996 leaving a legacy of daring, distinctive and elegant images.
Justly famous for his innovative and bold poster commissions, Games claimed that the perfect design employed ‘maximum meaning, minimum means’. As a design student they are words I loved, communication first as part of design.
The Back Cover
Abram Games – Salute the Soldier – National Army Museum, 1944
The model for the booklet looks to have been one Games used many times judging by the similarity of the ‘Salute the Soldier’ poster.
In 2014 Games’s image was used on a stamp for the Remarkable Lives series for Royal Mail.
Abram Games, 1st Class Stamp, Remarkable Lives Set, 2014.
This post is a light introduction into Edward Bawden’s early war work and paintings, before he was stationed to the Middle-East.
Edward Bawden – In an Air Raid Shelter, Dunkirk – Bombs are dropping, 1940.
On Thursday, 7th March, 1940, three days before his 37th birthday, it was announced in the British papers that Edward Bawden and Barnett Freeman were to become Official War Artists on behalf of the British War Office.
Newspaper with the small announcement under ‘War Artists’.
In the first days of April, Ardizzone (Edward) and Bawden took rooms for a while in the hotel Commerce in Arras, fussed over by a shared batman. They enjoyed the local wine and hospitality, before being billeted separately. Arras was dour, small and grey, It was also the GHQ for the British Army in France. †
Edward Bawden – Boys Serving Coffee, Dunkirk, 1940.
From the outset Edward Bawden had wanted to be close to the action: ‘Mr Bawden … would like to get to the front and live in close touch with the RAF.’ In the event he began his time in France with the 2nd Northampton Regiment, rather than the air force.The Northamptons, he found, were ‘nice, simple fellows … who tear about wagging their tails, fetching sticks and retrieving balls.’ †
The war artists found themselves being toured around by a Conducting Officer, who would choose the suitable sites and subjects. Once, Bawden was placed under arrest as he was painstakingly drawing a gun. On another occasion he was able to sit in on a court martial and sketch. †
Edward Bawden – A Court-Martial, Halluin, 1940.
On his way to Dunkirk, Bawden has rolled up his paintings in a cylindrical tin which he clutched under his arm. †
Edward Bawden – Embarkation of Wounded, May, 1940.
Approaching the port, he ditched all his equipment except his art materials (what would the Germans have done with them?) Marching into the town, they ran the gauntlet of ragged French soldiers jeering them. It discomforted him, as did the looters sweeping like locusts through abandoned houses. †
Edward Bawden – The Quay at Dunkirk, 1940.
He reached the quayside in the company of a Canadian major, and they watched with dismay the frantic self-preservation of a group of British generals on the Dunkirk quayside, the swagger sticks pointing at likely boats bound for England. He turned to the major, with a wry smile. ‘Rats always go first’ he said. †
Edward Bawden – Embarkation of Wounded, Dunkirk, May, 1940
After Dunkirk, Bawden found himself off to Iran and Iraq in 1943. The War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC) found itself in review mid-war, with the pay and styles of the war artists coming into dispute. It was taken over by F.H.Dowden.
Edward Bawden – The Entrance to an Air Raid Shelter, Dunkirk, 1940
Dowden has previously been an art inspector with the Board of Education (war art otherwise had almost nothing to do with the Home Division), but those credentials did little to facilitate a happy fit between the WAAC and its new minder. Among other things, he vetoed the allocation of funds to pay for the depiction of themes that seemed to him superfluous. ‘There is too much repetition of subjects which are historically unimportant,’ he objected, ‘and it may quite well be that the Committee are more concerned with finding work for artists in whom they are interested, than they are about making a record of the progress of the war.’ As a result of Dowden’s interference the WAAC’s decision to send Edward Bawden to Ian and/or Iraq in 1943 earned Home Office agreement only with difficulty, while a plan to give Stephen Bone an open contract to record subjects of his own choosing was rejected as an irresponsible use of public funds. ‡
Below is one of the paintings from Bawden’s time in Iraq. It was editioned as a print by the Curwen Press in 2008 in a limited number of 145.
Edward Bawden – Preparing to Entertain, 1944
† The Sketchbook War by Richard Knott, 2013 978-0752489230
‡ War Paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain by Brian Foss, 2007. 978-0300108903 p168.
◦ Images c/o the Imperial War Museum, London.
Traveller From Tokyo by John Morris, 1943, reprinted by Penguin 1946.
I bought the Penguin copy of this book. Major Charles John Morris, CBE (1895–1980), known as John, was a British mountaineer, anthropologist and journalist, and controller of BBC Radio’s Third Programme.
It’s rather amusing in places to read the views of an British man in Japan, Morris’s adventures with Japanese cooking especially. But I thought his chapter on the events after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour were worth typing up as it’s a rare insight into what life would have been like for an British man with international contacts in Japan days after.
The front page of the Gettysburg Times the Day after the Pearl Harbour attack.
After Pearl Harbour 7th DECEMBER 1941 to 29th JULY 1942
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
Sunday the 7th December 1941 was much the same as any other. I had got up rather late, played over a few records before lunch, and spent the afternoon writing an article on Virginia Woolf. It was never published and is now, I believe, in the archives of the Japanese police. My article was for Japan News Week, the American paper that had somehow managed to keep its independence right up to the outbreak of war. Its acknowledged policy was to promote amicable relations between the United States and Japan. This it attempted to do by means of extremely outspoken leading articles, which criticised impartially the attitude of both countries.
In the same spirit of impartiality it also published, in adjacent columns, two weekly summaries of the war situation in the exact form in which they were supplied by the British and German Embassies respectively. These, taken together. often formed amusing reading. As relations between Germany and Japan became closer, however, the German Embassy hinted at the desirability of editing the British summary in such a way that it should not contradict the official German news. This the editor flatly declined to do, upon which the German Embassy ceased to supply him with its own summary.
For some months before the outbreak of war three or four of us who were working for the paper had been accustomed to meet every Sunday night at the house of Paul Rusch, one of the best friends Japan has ever had. Paul had originally come to Japan as a voluntary Y.M.C.A. worker to help the Japanese after the terrible earthquake of 1923. He had later become an educational missionary and, in the course of years, had brought into being, almost entirely through his own efforts, what was probably one of the finest social service camps ‘for boys in the world. This camp was well on the way towards completion when the war put an end to Paul’s activities. He is also known as the introducer of American football into Japan.
A memorial bust of Paul Rusch
Paul’s dinners were much appreciated by all his guests. He had a high regard for the pleasures of the table, was an extremely skilled cook, and would often give us a dinner prepared and cooked entirely by himself. In these feasts, dishes peculiar to his own Kentucky would take a prominent place. Long after the rest of us had been forced by rationing difficulties to give up all forms of entertainment, Paul’s hospitality continued. How he did it we never found out, and it still remains his secret.
On the night of 7th December we had gathered as usual at Paul’s home; W.R.Wills, the Editor of Japan News Week, Phyllis Argall, the managing Editor of the paper, Air-Commodore Bryant, the British Air Attache, and myself. It was not often that we had a member of the diplomatic corps to give tone to our Sunday night parties. Besides, he brought other advantages. The petrol restriction, which had now made it almost impossible to get a taxi late at night, did not apply to members of the Embassy; when they went out to dinner they travelled in their own private cars, and it had become more or less understood that before returning to their own houses they should first see home any fellow guests who did not share their privileges. As this happened to be an unusually wet night, we were delighted to see Bryant’s saloon standing in front of Paul’s door. There would, at any rate, be no need to rush away early; no standing in a dripping bus queue, no strap-hanging on an overcrowded last suburban train.
But, of course, we were glad to see Bryant for his own sake, and to hear the latest news from home. It was only when we happened to meet someone from the Embassy that we had a chance of hearing what was really happening; for, although it was in theory possible for Englishmen in Tokyo to go to the Embassy and collect a copy of the daily bulletin, in actual practice this was seldom done, as regular visits to the British Embassy placed even British Subjects under grave police suspicion. In fact, after Japan entered the war a number of our nationals were arrested for the “offence” of having paid regular visits to their own embassy. The Japanese police were unwilling to believe that one might go there with no more dangerous object than to drink a cup of tea.
After dinner we all sat talking round the fire. Most of us had realised for some time that Japan’s entry into the war was now inevitable, but no one thought the moment was yet at hand. I think if anyone had told us that, as we sat there enjoying our quiet chat, the Japanese fleet was already in position in front of Pearl Harbour, we should have laughed at the idea. No one had received any hint that the crisis had been reached.
We left Paul’s house at about eleven o’clock, and Bryant, after seeing Wills and Phyllis Argall home, took me on in the direction of my house which was not very far from his. As it was getting late and he had to be up early in the morning, I asked him to drop me at the crossroads near his own house. There, accordingly, he stopped the car and we sat in it, smoking a last cigarette, before I got out and walked home. The streets were deserted; I cannot remember seeing a single soul on my way. And yet it later transpired that not only did the police know exactly who was dining at Paul’s house last night, but that they had also kept an eye on Bryant and me talking in his car at the crossroads. No doubt I was shadowed all the way to my house, but such is the efficiency of the Japanese police that I was totally unaware of it. During the whole of my four years’ stay in Japan I cannot recall a single occasion when I so much as suspected that I was being watched, and yet reports which I subsequently received made it clear that the police had kept an eye on me the whole time.
On the following morning I came down to breakfast as usual at about half-past eight. At this hour there was a daily broadcast of gramophone records, and I generally listened to it as I ate my breakfast. I switched on the radio, but instead of hearing a symphony, I heard the announcer talking rapidly in Japanese. He seemed to be saying the same thing over and over again, so I thought I had better try and make out what it was all about. As far as I could understand, the announcer was saying that a state of war now existed between Japan and the United States. (The news of the actual attack on Pearl Harbour was not made public until about an hour later.) As I was not quite certain whether I had understood correctly, I called in my cook and asked her if the news was true. “ Yes,” she said, “ but go on with your breakfast,or you’ll be late for your work.”
I was uncertain what to do, so I thought first of all I would go and talk things over with Reuters correspondent, Richard Tenelly, who was now my next-door neighbour. As soon as I had stepped out of my door, however, I noticed four or five policemen on guard outside Tenelly’s. They told me their chief was inside and that I had better see him. .He came down almost at once and I asked what I should do. “We have no orders to arrest you,” he said, “so you had better carry on with your work as usual.” I told him that I was due to give a lecture at ten, and he advised me to go away and deliver it. He refused to let me see Tenelly.
On arriving at the University I went straight to my classroom and set about delivering my lecture. There was nothing abnormal in the behaviour of the students and we carried on as though nothing had happened. At the end of the lecture, however, I was told that I had better do no further teaching pending the receipt of instructions from the Department of Education, in the meantime, it occurred to me that I would do well to visit the Foreign Office in order to find out exactly what my position now was. I have already explained that I originally went to Japan under the aegis of the Foreign Office, and although the matter was never committed to writing it was understood that in the event of war I should be afforded what practically amounted to diplomatic immunity.
I found the office in a turmoil; indeed, the officials with whom I spoke seemed just as much surprised and stunned by the news as the ordinary man in the street. To-day it is widely believed that the sending of Mr. Kurusu to Washington with the ostensible purpose of making a last minute attempt to prevent war was one of the most underhand diplomatic actions ever committed, since the plans for attacking Pearl Harbour had already been made and the Japanese navy was actually moving into position while Mr. Kurusu’s negotiations were still in progress. It is doubtful if the whole truth will ever be known, but when I call to memory my conversations with members of the Japanese Foreign Office on the morning of 8th December I am inclined to believe that the Japanese Government acted in good faith. I think it is not unlikely that the attack on Pearl Harbour was launched by the Armed Forces without the previous sanction of the Government in Tokyo. I I am well aware that this opinion will not be generally acceptable, but it should be remembered that the Japanese army chiefs already had established a precedent for taking independent action by their seizure of Manchuria in 1931 without obtaining the prior sanction of their Home Government.
I was told by the Foreign Office that orders had already been issued to the effect that I was not to be arrested. But it was added that I should be well advised to remain at home for the next few days, or at any rate until it was possible to see how the situation was developing. If I myself did not feel uneasy, however, there was no objection to my going out in the neighbourhood of my own home. Nevertheless, before going back to my house, I decided to visit my friend Frank Hawley, who was director of the British Library of Information and Culture, an institute which had recently been opened under the auspices of the British Council. It is remarkable that, in spite of the close relations we have maintained with Japan for many years, no one had apparently ever thought it worth while to establish such a library in the days of peace. A British institute could have had very considerable influence in increasing the already great interest in, and respect for, things English. In the event, the British Library was not opened until relations between the two countries had already become strained, and it came under the suspicion of the police from the start. But even during Its short existence it did valuable work, many teachers. and students taking advantage of the excellent selection of books which had been sent out from England by the British Council, although this often made them liable to police questioning.
When I arrived at Hawley’s house I found that both he and his Japanese wife had been arrested early in the morning and taken to the local police station. His cook told me that she thought it would be unwise to make any attempt to get in touch with him; she herself, when taking food and bedding to her master and mistress, had been denied access to them.
