Beschreibung:

A collection of 30 pencil drawings by Sergeant Arthur Charlton, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, drawn during his time as a Prisoner of War in Italy and Germany, the sketches include life under canvas in North Africa, camp life including fellow prisoners, many of them with captions for example '13th Sept at night RAF bombed lasted 2 hours, The tent after torrential rain', many 17 x 12cm, plus two drawings of Wellington's in the hangars dated 1941, 24 x 32cm together with related items plus copied photographs of the recipient and fellow prisoners believed to have been taken is Stalag IVB, framed and glazed, sold on behalf of the family Arthur Charlton (1917-2007), was born in Hartlepool, he studied at Hartlepool College of Art before volunteering for service in the Royal Air Force in 1940 (service no. 945616) and serving as Aircrew. He was promoted to Sergeant as a Wireless Operator and took part in 45 operational flights mainly in Wellington bombers over Germany and North Africa. He was serving in North Africa in 1943 when his aircraft was shot down and he parachuted into the sea off Benghazi. After being captured by the Italians in North Africa, he spent some time in a POW camp in Bari, Southern Italy and was subsequently relocated by the Germans to Stalag IVB for the remainder of the war. During his time in camp Charlton recorded daily life using whatever materials he could find, including bitumen paper, biscuit wrappers and the backs of labels from tins. Many of these works were bequeathed to the Imperial War Museum in 1984. On 23 April 1945 he was released by the Russian army and flown back to England where he resumed his art education at the Royal College of Art in South Wales. (an album)