US Officer's cafeteria

Sketch depicting the line up in the cafeteria of the American officer's mess at Fenton airstrip in Northwest Australia. Wep captured the activities of U.S Bomber Squadron 319 while on his first tour as war correspondent to Darwin and Northern Australia in 1943. This sketch was reproduced in 'the Australian Women's Weekly' 25 December 1943, p.10 on a feature about the US Squadron. It included 3 other sketches and two paintings by Wep and anecdotes by fellow correspondent Bill Moore. William Edwin Pidgeon (1909-1981) was a painter, cartoonist, illustrator and newspaper critic. Working with Consolidated Press, he was appointed a war correspondant and artist in 1943. He became renowned for his cartoons signed with his initials, 'WEP'. During the Second World War many of his illustrations were published in the 'Australian Women's Weekly' and on the cover of the magazine. His humourous works conveyed the lives, personalities and conditions under which Australian troops served in Darwin, New Guinea and Borneo. During the Second World War he also contributed cartoons to the Army periodical, SALT. After the war he continued to provide illustrations for books during the 1950s, but mainly concentrated on portrait painting. He won the Archibald Prize in 1958, 1961 and again in 1968 for a portrait of fellow artist Lloyd Rees. From 1974-79 he served as the art critic for the 'Sunday Telegraph' newspaper.