Signing on in a Hull Mercantile Marine Office
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Hailstone joined the Auxiliary Fire Service. Here, he made drawings of his colleagues and scenes of the Blitz. In 1941 he was commissioned by the War Artistsâ Advisory Committee to paint civil defence subjects. In 1943 he was appointed as a Ministry of War Transport Artist, recording convoys in the Atlantic. Near the end of the war Hailstone was assigned to the South-East Asia Command, painting Lord Louis Mountbatten and key members of his staff. These pictures now reside at the Imperial War Museum.