Barnett Freedman joined the ranks of the War Artists Advisory Committee's official war artists early in the war, but his stormy temperament soon meant that he was given short-term commissions rather than full-time employment. Here, he successfully conveys the tense concentration of the wireless telegraphers on the eve of the Allied Landings in Normandy. Freedman was famed as a book illustrator, and this watercolour shows his characteristic clear lines, rhythmic composition and stylized figures.