Fighter Affiliation: Halifax and Hurricane by Walter Thomas Monnington, oil on canvas

This is one of two paintings representing a Fighter Affiliation exercise in which the crew of a Halifax bomber were trained to out-manoeuvre a naturally faster and more agile Hurricane fighter. The exercise was designed to emulate the real-life situations faced by bomber crew pursued by enemy fighters, enabling them to practice positioning their turrets and gunsights, and make evasive manoeuvres, in response to attacks from challenging angles. This painting's companion picture is in the collection of Imperial War Museums (LD 3769).

Monnington depicts a scene from the rear perspective of a Halifax bomber aircraft amid clouds, looking towards the gun turret, and at an approaching Hurricane fighter aircraft in the distance, both aircraft banking towards starboard. Prior to becoming an Official War Artist, between 1939 and 1943 he worked for the Camouflage Directorate, Leamington Spa, developing designs to protect airfields and factories from enemy attack. He gained over 600 hours of airborne experience, undertaking aerial observation and analysing the appearances of ground-level objects from the air. Detailing his experience, in a letter to the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) Monnington proposed to paint aerial subjects, requesting 'flying facilities in operational or training machines' that could accommodate him as a passenger, commenting that few commissioned paintings of the 'war in the air as seen from the air' were 'recorded in a way comparable with the significance this aspect of the war deserves.' His offer was enthusiastically supported by the Air Ministry, and Group Captain Lord Willoughby de Broke (John Verney), Deputy Director of Public Relations, arranged facilities for him, deeming his flying experience and familiarity with RAF stations to be a 'great asset' and describing him as 'the type of person who will get on well with RAF personnel wherever he goes.' After a brief probationary period, 'on loan' from the Camouflage Directorate, Monnington's appointment as an Official War Artist was confirmed in November 1943, and he received aerial themed commissions until the end of the war. At a time when the - still relatively recent - phenomenon of flying was the preserve of few civilians, Monnington's works were among a minority that represented authentic aerial perspectives. Officially commissioned war artists, including Paul Nash, mostly consulted photographs and aviation periodicals to conceive of imaginative reconstructions, and largely experienced aircraft on the ground at RAF stations and in factories. Monnington's project, however, emphasised the importance of authentic aerial perspectives, which WAAC Secretary E.C. Gregory explained as a necessary, novel approach: 'it is a special idea of painting the stratosphere as a background to particular makes of aeroplanes so as to give the idea of the aeroplanes actually in their surroundings among the clouds ... which naturally cannot be done without a good many flights as the effects would be the outcome of personal recording.’ Yet Monnington's experiences of flying were, at that time, limited to training activities. War artist commissions largely precluded the first-hand recording of dramatic and dangerous operational action, while themes such as training exercises were favoured to mitigate risk. Although his paintings may be regarded as authentically representing exciting, vertiginous perspectives, Monnington regarded the aerial-themed works he submitted in January 1944, including Fighter Affiliation, to fall short of emulating his flying experiences or evoking operational action. 'I have got little of what I wanted of the feeling of being in the air. There is also I fear a complete lack of war interest', he explained. Indeed, when later reflecting on the the war artists' scheme, Kenneth Clark, Chair of the WAAC, expressed the contradictory problem of, on the one hand, attempting to protect British culture in wartime by keeping artists employed rather than fighting, while, on the other, commissioning them to develop artistic records of the war. Despite criticisms of the lack of 'war' in Official War Art, practising as a war artist was not without risk, as was evidenced by three artists - Eric Ravilious, Albert Richards and Thomas Hennell - losing their lives abroad. A few months later, Monnington eventually flew in operations over Europe with RAF No. 2 Group, 2nd Tactical Air Force, in North American B-25 Mitchell bombers. From the Air Ministry allocation of works from the War Artists' Advisory Committee, 1947. Original accession number: LD3770. On loan from the RAF Air Historical Branch (MOD). Copyright: Crown (expired). Image copyright: RAF Museum.