John Worsley joined the Royal Navy in 1939. His depictions of life on board ship were soon acquired by the War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC), and he was quickly made an official war artist. In 1943, he was captured in the Mediterranean and spent the rest of the war in a naval officer's prison camp, Marlag ‘O’ at Westertimke, near Bremen in north Germany.
When Worsley sent his first wartime drawings to the WAAC in 1940, the Secretary commented on their pleasure at this ‘amusing scribble of dressing for the north sea weather’. Worsley’s narrative cartoon presents the sequence of layering-up for duty on deck and reflects his peacetime work as an illustrator. His deliberate efforts to make his drawings legible show him consciously recording the war for a home audience, rather than for his own benefit.