Landing at Kabakaul

Depicts the landing of Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force at the town of Kabakaul, in what was then German New Guinea, on 11 September 1914. HMAS Warrego and Yarra are in the background while a party of 25 naval reservists land at a jetty from the ship's boats. Their orders were to destroy the radio tower at Bita Paka, seven kilometres inland. The men met some resistance from German soldiers and New Guinea troops, but with the support of reinforcements the force captured the German radio station by 7 pm that evening. This was Australia's first action in the First World War.

Charles Bryant had been an official war artist in France in 1917-18 and was later commissioned to create a series of paintings about the Australian occupation of German New Guinea.