HMAS Tobruk and the Canadian supply ship Protecteur

by Robert McRae

Dimensions:

63 cm x 94 cm

Medium:

Watercolour on paper

Date:

1999

Setting:

Peace time operations

Courtesy of the Australian National Maritime Museum

This painting depicts Australian Army and Navy troops alongside local Somali volunteers unloading urgently needed relief supplies from HMAS Tobruk onto waiting trucks on the Mogadishu Wharf, Somalia.

About Robert McRae
Bob was born in New South Wales and attended the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education and Sydney Teacher's College during the 1970s. Since the 1980s, he has worked as a teacher at several TAFE colleges in New South Wales, including Wollongong and Dapto.

Bob has been painting ships since the 1990s.

During a painting trip to Darwin in 1999 to sketch the Northern Territory wetlands Bob painted several vessels stationed at the naval port. These vessels were part of the multinational force preparing for operations in East Timor.

He then moved on to become an official artist with the Royal Australian Navy during various offshore exercises. June 2005 Bob drew and photographed the commissioning of HMAS Armidale at Darwin Naval Base. In February 2006 he drew and photographed on board HMAS Townsville during Operation Ocean Protector off Jervis Bay, NSW.

In 2008, Bob was appointed Official Artist for the RAN Naval History Unit in the Iraq War. His role was to draw, paint and photograph naval activities. Most of the time, he was working aboard HMAS Arunta during patrols near Iraq.

Bob is an established and accomplished watercolour painter and printmaker who has exhibited extensively in New South Wales and the Northern Territory. Works by Bob are held in the collections of the University of Wollongong, BHP (Shipping), the Australian War Memorial and the National Maritime Museum in Sydney.

More paintings by Robert McRae
About HMAS Tobruk (ll)
HMAS Tobruk was a Modified Sir Bedivere Class, Landing Ship Heavy (LSH) built at Carrington Slipways Pty Ltd on the Hunter River, NSW. Tobruk was designed for combined Navy and Army amphibious operations; essentially a multi-purpose troop and roll-on/roll-off, heavy vehicle carrier with facilities for bow and stern loading, beaching, a drive-through capacity and inter-deck transfers via ramps.