USS West Point, Singapore (1942)

Des carried his sketch book with him wherever he was, and would draw anything of visual interest. Here is a pencil study done in Singapore of the USS West Point

The USS West Point was an American troop ship, built in 1940 as a luxury passenger liner for the United States Line and pressed into war service before it had a chance to start its transatlantic service. The date on the sketch suggests it must have been one of the last troopships to call at Singapore before the capitulation. It survived the war to service the north Altantic route throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, being sold to the Greek Chandris line to be converted into a migrant ship for the Australian run, renamed the ‘Australis’. In 1994 it foundered while being towed to the far east and broke up off the Canary Islands.