Russell Clark
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1905, d.1966
Japanese Planes, Rekata Bay, Santa Isabel, 1945
- 1945
- Watercolour
- N Barrett bequest collection, purchased 2010
- 504 x 640mm
- 2010/020
- View on google maps
Tags: airplanes, beaches, disasters, people (agents), pilots, sand, soldiers, sons (people), symbols, trees, wars
Russell Clark spent nine months as an official war artist in the Pacific in 1944. He served mostly in the Solomon Islands, where he recorded the action against Japanese forces. Rekata Bay had been an occupied Japanese Imperial Navy seaplane base from 1942 until 1943, when a repeated bombing campaign by US forces ultimately forced their abandonment of the base. Pictured here are the wrecked aircraft left behind.
(Te Wheke, 2020)