Entropy; Fire practice

Darwin experienced 64 air raids during the course of the second world war. There were several important wartime airfields established in the Northern Territory - Groote Eylandt, Gove and Millingimbi. Artist Bob McRae has investigated several sites of either crashed or wrecked warplanes in the Northern Territory and New South Wales. In his series of etchings he documented many of these sites. McRaw says: "As kids living in Rickdale, NSW, my brother and I would crawl through holes in the wire at Mascot Airport, then through the swamps to explore the wrecked Lincoln Bomber plane which was used for fire practice at the airport. The plane could be entered by portholes. The gun mount and control panels were still moveable and I remember looking through the perspex viewing ports. More often than not, when I mention this to blokes who might have seen it while driving along General Holmes Drive beside the airport, they remember it and confirm that they also had done what I had done - gotten through the wire, hidden when airport cars went past and explored the wreck."