'03 Springfield Picture of the Day

Sinking Sun
Griffith Baily Coale #28
Oil on canvas, 1942
88-188-AB



A Marine stands at parade rest on the bow of a PT boat as she moves slowly out to sea from Midway to give decent burial to Japanese fliers shot down on the islands during the battle. The red ball of the rising sun is prophetically repeated by the round disc and spreading rays of the sinking sun.

The Artists
Lieutenant Commander Griffith Baily Coale, USNR, is credited with founding the Navy Combat Art program. Prior to World War II he was a well-known mural painter based in New York City. In the time of rising tensions prior to the war he convinced Admiral Chester Nimitz to start the combat art program as a way of documenting the war in a way that words and photographs could not. Through the duration of the war Coale saw action in every ocean from the sinking of U.S.S. Reuben James in the North Atlantic to British action in Southeast Asia. Though not at Midway during the battle, he visited the island group before and after. His action-filled images reflect the high emotions that surrounded the event.