Camouflaged aviation spirit storage depot, Gayndah, Queensland

This watercolour was painted by William Bustard (1894-1974) using sketches he made on active service with the R.A.A.F as a camouflage officer. It shows a project he was involved in at Gayndah, Queensland, to camouflage a set of three storage tanks by turning them into a dummy farm. Of the project the artist noted: 'The depot was situated at Gayndah Queensland on the Monto line and comprised three large storage tanks of High Octane Aviation spirit. The tanks were bricked all round, the bricks were toned down, to eliminate the colour, with paint. Around the base of the tanks were banks of earth to form a saucer like shape in case blast cracked the structure to keep the petrol in a local position. The little piggery (Dummy) was placed to cover up lots of the mixing pipes. The delivery shed was camouflaged to look like an ordinary cottage. One of the large tanks was made to appear like some country flour mill the others were made to appear like large clumps of trees that were common to the district. The earth works were a big problem on account of the enormous area they covered. The mixing room, guard room and automatic fire shed for pumping foam were all treated in a manner to fit in with the surrounding landscape. From the air at no time was it possible to see a shadow of the straight edges of the tanks as observations were made at all times of the day. The R.A.A.F took many photographs at varying stages of the work.'

William Bustard applied to be an official war artist (OWA) to the A.I.F in June 1941. He sent his application directly to the then Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon. A.W. Fadden who he hoped would recommend him as a fellow Queenslander. Bustard's was among the 45 written applications considered by the Art Advisory Committee (AAC) for appointments in 1941. The selection was not restricted to those who applied. Unsuccessful in this round Bustard was later in a list of 19 artists compiled by the AAC to be called on to cover home front activities in 1942. Although he never became an official war artist on the strength of this listing he was approached by Treloar in 1949 to see if he had any war theme art works that might be purchased for the collection. Treloar also suggested that if he had sketches these could be worked up into a more substantial work for consideration by the ACC.