Diggers in the South Pacific

A four-panel mural painting for the 2/9th Australian General Hospital recreational hut for the amusement of the patients. This panel depicts six vignettes of diggers in the South Pacific. A group of soldiers loot a crashed Japanese aircraft, its pilot sits sprawl-legged on the ground rubbing his head; a sleep-walking soldiers uses a butterfly catcher to try and snag a beautiful woman with blonde hair in a red swimming suit sitting on a flying keg of alcohol; a troop huddle in the rain, watching a Cary Grant film on an outdoor cinema screen, and; two soldiers flee from a medico wielding an enormous syringe.

Drawing and painting materials were scarce during the Second World War, so McLaren adopted the tar-backed paper (sisalkraft) that was used throughout the Solomon Islands for lining the thatched huts. At the end of the war, the murals were brought back to Australia by a member of the 2/9th A.G.H. and were installed in Red Cross House library in the N.S.W. division headquarters of the ARCS. In the early 1970s, the building was due to be demolished and the mural was salvaged once again to find a permanent home in the collection of the Australian War Memorial.