The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
Depicts the clock tower in Labuan, Borneo. Donald Friend was in Labuan, an archipelago off the coat of Borneo, in June 1945. Of the town of Labuan he wrote in his Diary on 10 June 1945; 'On the starboard, near, lay Labuan. The town was partly in flames from Jap [sic] demolitions...The Labuan landscape is really something: there is not that endless momotony of palms....the town is devastated. The architecture, such as remains of it, is that picturesque orientalised baroque which is found in all colonies of the Dutch and Portuguese seas- plaster over pinkish brick, painted pale green , pink and blue. Arches, latticed windows... I spent all day among the ruins of the town, drawing'. Again in his Diary on 20 June 1945, Friend noted; 'To the town, sketching all morning, with some interesting results. One could spend a couple of months here drawing nothing but the ruins...much of the town has been cleared up- great rubble heaps removed'. Standing almost alone in a sea of canvas tents, bullet-scarred, the Clock tower apparently at one time embellished the facade of a large public building of which now nothing remains standing after the bombardment. The arch doorway of the Clock Tower is surmounted by an illegible inscription celebrating the name of the citizen who built it.
Depicts the town of Victoria on Labuan, Borneo, the day after the landing by troops of the 24th Australian Infantry Brigade were entrusted with the task of re-occupying the island as part of the Borne
A sketch of the damaged caused by bombardment of Labuan, before the 24th Australian Infantry Battalion landed on 10 June 1945. The Clock Tower remains standing amongst the rubble, and Australian sold
Drawing of the clock tower at Victoria Town, Labuan, which was one of the three surviving structures after the Japanese evacuated the town in 1945. Writing for the Australian Women's Weekly of his tra
LABUAN ISLAND. 12 JUNE 1945. THE CLOCK TOWER OF THE LOCAL TOWN HALL - ALL THAT REMAINS AFTER THE HEAVY PRE-INVASION ALLIED SHELLING OF VICTORIA TOWNSHIP.
Depicts a street scene with buildings and a clock tower in the background in Labuan, Borneo. William Edwin Pidgeon (1909-1981), known as 'WEP' was a war correspondent, painter, cartoonist and illustra
On his last assignment as war correspondent Wep was sent to Borneo. This painting depicts Victoria Town, Labuan Island. Visible are some damaged buoys and the only two buildings and a clock tower to s
