This painting, signed ‘Chas Pears’ and produced for the War Artists Advisory Committee, shows an action of late 1942 during the Second World War. Captain R. H. V. Sherbrook of the destroyer ‘Onslow’ was in overall command of a group of 11 escort ships that was accompanying 14 vessels en route from Scotland to Russia. On New Year’s Eve the convoy was attacked within the Arctic Circle by the German cruiser ‘Hipper’ and the pocket battleship ‘Lützov’. A four-hour engagement ensued, during which the ‘Onslow’ was badly hit and Sherbrook wounded. Despite suffering heavy damage, the escorts managed to keep the German vessels away from the convoy, until they were relieved by the British cruisers ‘Sheffield’ and ‘Jamaica’ which were in the area. After the German destroyer ‘Friedrich Eckholdt’ was sunk and the ‘Hipper’ damaged, the German forces broke off the action and the convoy continued unscathed. Sherbrook was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Pears confronts with inventiveness the difficulty of representing an action on the open sea in the freezing, snowy Arctic gloom. The only illumination comes from the firing of the guns, which lights up the profile and foaming wake of the ‘Onslow’ at the centre of the composition, as she heads towards the ‘Hipper’, faintly silhouetted in the right background and also identified by her firing guns. The subtly modulated sombre greys dominating the painting, ranging from the dark mass of smoke spewing diagonally across the picture from the ‘Onslow’s funnel to the lighter tones of the fanning wake and the flecks of snow over the scene, are contrasted with the flaring orange accents of the guns, which indicate the distant and otherwise barely visible enemy ships ranged ahead of the solitary ‘Onslow’.