In February 1940, Eric Ravilious (1903–42), became, with Paul Nash, one of the first artists to be appointed by the WAAC. He was assigned to the Admiralty and given the rank of Captain. His first assignments took him to the Royal Naval Barracks in Chatham, Sheerness, Grimsby and Scapa Flow, sailing to the Arctic Circle on HMS ‘Highlander’. Ravilious moved on to Portsmouth, and, in August 1940, to HMS ‘Dolphin’, the Royal Navy shore base at Gosport. He spent time on board L-class submarines (which, largely decommissioned by the time of the Second World War, were used for training), drawing interiors of these extraordinary environments. From this experience, came the ‘Submarines' series, a group of lithographic prints produced in 1941, and perhaps his most coherent group of wartime works. The preparatory sketches, acquired by the WAAC, are in the National Maritime Museum.
In 1942, Ravilious was reassigned to the RAF. That summer, he went to Iceland, to never return: his aircraft was lost during a rescue operation on 2 September. Ravilious was the first of three official war artists killed on active duty during the Second World War.

This drawing shows the submariners at the diving controls (traditionally manned by the coxwain and second coxwain). In August 1940, Ravilious wrote to his friend Helen Binyon, ‘the submarine has taken a lot of doing, but now there are half a dozen drawings on the way, of interiors (with people!) … There is something jolly good about them, if only I can manage it. Blue gloom with coloured lights and everyone in shirts and braces’. In both drawings and prints, the sense of order, space and light in the interiors contrasts with Ravilious’s earlier complaints of overbearing heat, confinement and noise. There are two lithographic prints made after this drawing in the NMM collection (object ID: PAD8090 - PAD8091).