In 1943, Eric Thake enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force. Working originally as an architectural draftsman, his talent was soon put to better use when he was appointed as a war artist in 1944. In this capacity, he made two trips - in 1944 and 1945 - to recently liberated areas in Timor and Papua New Guinea.
Even at this time, war artists enjoyed complete freedom in their work. Thake was evidently under no obligation to propagandise or to glorify the Allied effort. Instead, he was free to indulge his own vision, finding surrealist totems in wrecked aeroplanes or noting with delight the hand-painted decorations of American bombers.
As a special gift to his family, Thake kept a record of these two trips in a series of three spiral-bound sketchbooks, accompanying his sketches with a written commentary.
Sketchbook 1: Melbourne to Townsville 1944
Sketchbook 2: Townsville to Melbourne 1944-45
Sketchbook 3: Melbourne to Koepang 1945 | 
