A World War II British Royal Navy Battle Scene
I am pleased to share with you the story behind this painting, entitled, The Attack Pressed Home. This artwork portrays a World War II night action scene in which three British Royal Navy Motor Torpedo Boats — MTBs 349, 360, and 351 — press forward under intense enemy fire as they strike at a merchant vessel leading a convoy off the Dutch coast near IJmuiden. These craft belonged to the first division of a five-boat flotilla that had set out from Felixstowe, and I sought to capture not only their daring advance but the charged atmosphere of the moment, that embodied both courage and vulnerability in equal measure, and it was that fragile balance I wished to bring to life on the canvas.
When entrusted with this painting commission, in January 2021, I was asked by my client to convey both the raw drama of the engagement and the very human emotions it stirred — tension, anticipation, fear, and awe — while grounding the scene firmly in historical reality. The painting depicts the opening moments (the first thirty seconds) of the hour-long clash that unfolded between 12:30 and 1:30 a.m. on the 1st of October, 1944. My client's late grandfather — who was the coxswain of HMMTB 360 — lost his life on that occasion and was awarded a posthumous Mention in Dispatches. He was only 28.
Rendered in oil paint on bespoke linen, measuring 65 by 100 cm, The Attack Pressed Home is the culmination of three months of work, with over two hundred hours at the easel and seventy hours research. It is my hope that in this piece, viewers may sense both the reality of that night and the timeless courage it revealed.
The Composition
After carefully studying my client's notes on how he envisioned the painting, I began by creating a simple pen sketch to capture the arrangement of each element within the composition. Alongside his personal guidance, he also entrusted me with a detailed historical Royal Navy account of the battle. Immersing myself in these records allowed me to grasp the gravity of the events, so that I might faithfully depict the pivotal opening moments as they first unfolded.
The Opening Moments of The Battle
On the night of the battle, the sea state was calm to moderate. There was poor visibility, due to intermittent squalls, and low cloud was obscuring an almost full moon. In the composition, the three 72 feet 6 inch Vosper MTBs in the first division of the flotilla (MTB's 349, 360 and 351) are depicted accurately. From a tactical point of view, MTBs would have approached the enemy at a slow speed, so as not to create a wake behind them.
In the early stages of the Channel war, the British quickly came to understand hard but invaluable lessons. Crews discovered that charging ahead at full speed into an attack created a luminous phosphorescent wash upon the water — an unintentional beacon that betrayed their position long before they could reach an effective torpedo range. Such a tactic was, in truth, perilously close to suicide. From this realization, a new approach emerged. The motor torpedo boats would advance with restraint, relying only on the auxiliary engine, gliding forward at a near-silent pace of five to eight knots. In this way, the boats produced almost no visible wake and scarcely a whisper of sound, slipping unseen across the darkened sea. Then, at the decisive moment, the torpedoes were released. Only after striking would the crews ignite the main engines in a sudden, explosive burst of power — racing from the danger, regrouping, and, with renewed intent, turning back to re-engage secondary targets.
As the three MTBs moved into position, the darkness was suddenly torn open by the harsh brilliance of star shell fire from the target — a three-island merchant vessel of some two to three thousand tons. In an instant, the quiet tension gave way to chaos. The merchant ship opened fire, and the British answered at once, their Oerlikons and .5-inch Vickers machine guns spitting defiance into the night. Red and green tracers cut across the blackness, their colours revealing the opposing forces — the British, red, and the Germans, green, marked by the very chemicals that lit their rounds. Amid the flashes and the roar, the British could just make out the looming shapes of other enemy vessels, half-concealed, and scattered through the convoy like shadowed giants in the gloom.
MTB 349 loosed her torpedoes first, and moments later MTB 360 followed with her own salvo. The weapons from MTB 349 ran straight and true, threading their way between two fierce lines of tracer fire streaming from the enemy vessel. Suddenly, one of MTB 360’s torpedoes detonated prematurely, erupting into a towering column of spray that momentarily veiled MTB 351's view of the target. In reply, the enemy ship unleashed a furious storm of fire — automatic weapons chattering while heavy shells, three and four inches across, crashed down with relentless force. The entire division now lay beneath the full weight of concentrated, merciless fire.
Research
Research was vital to the process. Over seventy hours were spent immersing myself in the details, ensuring that the painting would not only represent an event but resonate with truth. Yet beyond the facts, my aim was to let brush and colour communicate what words cannot — the atmosphere, the human spirit, and the drama of history lived.
To learn more about Vosper MTBs, I purchased an excellent book on the subject of HM Allied Coastal Forces and the technical aspects of the MTB. These boats were constantly modified and improved upon during the war. This book proved invaluable for me, for it helped me to eventually figure out the correct deck plan for the three MTBs that I was to depict in the painting. It's one thing for an artist to get the painting historically accurate, but when it comes to the appearance and specifications of the vessels, it also has to be technically accurate too. Discovering in the book the original technical drawings of the various Vosper boat designs and photographs taken during the Second World War, made the process somewhat easier for me. I also bought a model kit of the Vosper boat and put it together and took photos of it from different angles and experimented with light, creating light and shadows to imitate the bright light from the enemy star shell and how it would have fallen on the boats. This helped me considerably when I created the initial composition for the painting.
Creating a Composite Image
To provide my client with a better visual idea of how the painting might look, I created a composite image, using lots of separate photographs, on my desktop computer, and using imaging editing software, created a final image with much greater realism than the original sketch I had provided. I used photos that I had taken of my Vosper model, I also used images of the sea at night; I found images of starshell (descending on its parachute), flares and shell explosions, and also incorporated them into the composite image. Once I had completed the image I sent my client a copy of it, which he found most helpful.
You will note in the composite reference image above, I used images of the German bunkers, on the sand dunes, near the entrance to the port of IJmuiden (on the left of the painting). I also added the industrial chimneys, situated on the other side of the entrance (but set further back), to resemble the chimneys of the steelworks that would have been similar to those that existed there during the 1940s.
The lighter part of the sky — to the left of where the British rocket flares and German star shell are shining — gives the impression of a full moon partly obscured behind heavy cloud, yet giving a hint that its nocturnal luminosity is trying to push through nonetheless. This makes the sky really interesting artistically and less uniform in appearance and also lends itself really well toward the general tense, atmospheric and brooding suspense of the battle that is unfolding below in its full and immediate fury. Variation in contrast within a composition is vital in art and it is what makes good art: light against dark produces depth.
The surface of the water around the MTBs is illuminated by the light from the star shell — as are the decks of the MTBs. Again, artistically, this breaks up the uniformity of the water and makes it really interesting in terms of contrast and allows for more detail on the MTBs to be visible too.
From an artist's perspective, the composite image has a good balance to it: that is to say, how everything within it has been arranged. Further, the positioning of the various enemy explosions going off in the water, at varying distances, shows off the depth-of-field to really good effect. Having depth-of-field is important in any maritime/military painting, as it makes an artwork far more interesting and almost 3-dimensional.
Creating the painting
The first images show the drawing of the MTBs and merchant vessels on the canvas using the ‘squaring up’ technique, drawn with a 6H pencil. The squaring up method helps to establish the correct proportions of the main subjects that will feature in the painting.
The first paint layer, is known as the underpainting. At this early stage in the painting process, the painting looks fairly basic: the first paint layer will always be quite thin (because of the 'fat over lean' rule for oil painting), and even appear dark in places, and brushstrokes will be visible, etc. The underpainting is merely a base layer, where the paint is thinned with artists' thinners.
For this painting, I used a colour called Paynes Gray, which is a dark blue paint. In order to create various nighttime shades, or tones, from it, I added black and Titanium White to it. To this mixture, I also added drops of professional artists' thinners.
Defining the Water
I painted the sea's surface, using oil paint mixed with an artists' liquid medium. Over a number of days, I defined the detail of the water (the second layer of paint) with mostly small horizontal brush strokes, using different shades of Paynes Grey paint. I decided to have about four shades of Payne's Gray paint: ranging from dark to light. I used Titanium White paint to lighten the Payne's Gray. I used the darkest shade where the waves and ripples were in shadow and painted the brighter areas with the lightest shade, which was almost white. A third layer was subsequently required in order to add greater brightness in certain places and as well as some finer detail. I steadily worked from the left of the canvas, in one-inch columns, toward the right, using a reference photo of the water to guide me. I also painted the wake behind the MTBs and the distant merchant vessel's hull.
Next, I painted the first paint layer on the hulls of the MTBs and lightly worked on the wash behind them. I also worked on the sky, flares, and smoke trail caused by the star shell. To give the smoke greater realism and prevent it looking too flat in the composition, I simply emphasized the contrast on the smoke trail and darkened areas that were in shadow.
I also turned my attention to the huge plume of water, caused by the torpedo going off too early, and thought about how to create a softness and spray around it, so it would sit much better in the mid-ground of the painting and not take away anything from the three MTBs that, essentially, were the main focus of the painting. Identifying numbers were painted on the stern of each MTB and their decks were also painted, along with torpedo tubes and other details.
I next painted the water splashes caused by the enemy shells and machine gun fire and painted detail on the targeted vessel. I also painted the light from the rocket flares shining on the dunes and shoreline near the targeted vessel. This made the targeted vessel stand out much more clearly in the painting. I also painted the steelworks at the port and the port's protective harbour wall, using old WW2 photos as reference.
The dunes to the left of the port have been partially covered by rain from a thin squally rain shower just offshore. To paint the first layer of the squally shower, I first waited until the sand dunes paint layer was dry enough to paint over, and then I used a fan brush, which I modified by trimming off some of the outer hair bristles, and dabbed it lightly into Payne's Grey paint and then brushed it lightly onto the canvas, using downstrokes.
Painting the Crew
I took my time painting the crew on each MTB. It was important to get that right; for how I portrayed them would reflect not only the tension and immediacy of the moment, but also illustrate the numbers of personnel required to man these vessels in such hostile environments — and all this depicted in a manner that would show how competent and courageous they were in the heat of battle.
When I paint figures in a painting, I begin by painting the body using Paynes Grey paint, as a base layer, straight from the tube. Once dry, I define the clothing, the face and hands on each figure. On this painting, I kept the figures quite dark in appearance — almost silohuetted — with just the least amount of variation to show where the light was falling on them in the scene. I painted the crew in a way that showed their resolve and physical strength as they operated the boat's weapons.
Finishing off with Tracer Fire Detail
The last thing to paint were the rounds of tracer fire. Although I had painted them quite early on in the commission, I did rework the tracer fire a few times, to make it better. It was important to achieve an impression of intensity and deadly speed as the tracer fire flowed both ways between the MTBs and the convoy. Using more Titanium White at the head of each tracer round seemed to depict it with greater realism.
Summary
This painting commission was a deeply fulfilling experience for me, as an artist. It was the first time I had produced a highly detailed military artwork for a client. Learning about the Vosper motor torpedo boat and the challenges HM Allied Coastal Forces were faced with was educational for me and provided me with a deeper insight into every aspect of MTB warfare and a greater respect for the ingenuity and bravery of the crews. It was an honour to paint The Attack Pressed Home for my client and his family.
The process allowed me to combine meticulous historical research with artistic expression, ensuring that the final piece was both visually compelling and true to the spirit of the events it depicted. I found myself immersed not only in the technical details of the vessels but also in the human stories behind them, which added a profound emotional dimension to the work.
I hope you enjoyed this insight into the painting of The Attack Pressed Home. Thank you for reading.
Mark Woollacott is a member of Artists' Union England, the trade union for visual, applied and socially engaged artists www.artistsunionengland.org.uk
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