East of Cruelly. British infantry resting

Image Size: 300mm x 237mm

After growing up in Redcar on the North Yorkshire coast, Joe was studying at Scarborough School of Art in 1939, when, with the outbreak of war he volunteered for the RAF. Throughout the war and especially after the D-day landings, when he was with the RAF Servicing Commandos, Joe recorded his experiences in pen and watercolour sketches which, as he was not an official war artist, he had to keep hidden in the bottom of his kitbag. Although some of his remarkable records were found and confiscated, almost 50 images slipped through the net to form a highly evocative personal record of his experiences.

Joe produced this painting when his unit came across a group of exhausted British infantry resting by the roadside during the advance inland after the Normandy landings in June 1944.