Tch, Tch -- After all the speeches I made about her! HMAS WYATT EARP voyage deferred
Artist
Jack Lusby
Date1948
Object number00054703
NameCartoon
MediumPaper, ink
DimensionsOverall: 330 × 465 mm
Image: 260 × 415 mm
Image: 260 × 415 mm
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Rhod Cook
DescriptionCartoon by Brisbane Courier Mail cartoonist Jack Lusby following the premature return of HMAS WYATT EARP from the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition in January 1948 to undergo repairs. It is Dr Herbert Evatt, the Australian Minister for External Affairs, who is exclaims 'Tch, Tch -- After all the speeches I made about her!'.HistoryHMAS Wyatt Earp was originally built as the Norwegian fishing vessel Fanefjord in 1919. In 1933 it was purchased by American Antarctic explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and named Wyatt Earp after the famed American lawman of Dodge City, Kansas and Tombstone, Arizona. The vessel was acquired by the Royal Australian Navy in 1939, renamed HMAS Wongala (an Indigenous Australian word meaning 'Boomerang'), and operated as an examination vessel and guardship in South Australian waters during the Second World War. In 1947 the vessel was renamed HMAS Wyatt Earp prior to its involvement in the Australian National Antarctic Resarch Expedition. It was decommissioned and sold in 1951, ultimately renamed M/V Natone, and was wrecked on Queensland's Rainbow Beach in January 1959.SignificanceThis drawing was in the possession of Captain William Cook, a Royal Australian Navy officer who served as second-in-command aboard HMAS Wyatt Earp, the first Australian naval vessel to participate in an Antarctic research expedition (the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition) in the immediate post-war period. The drawing, entitled 'Voyage Deferred', is the original drawn by Brisbane Courier Mail political cartoonist Jack Lusby to mark Wyatt Earp's return from its failed voyage to Antarctica in January 1948. It appeared in the 23 January 1948 edition of the Brisbane Courier Mail and was later presented to the crew of Wyatt Earp. It was subsequently framed and hung in Wyatt Earp's wardroom mess, where it remained until the vessel was decommissioned from naval service (and ended up in Cook's possession).
