Ludwig Lund was born in the city of Odense in Denmark in 1908, the son of a horticulturist and landscape gardener. From an early age, encouraged by his artist grandmother, he painted and drew and went on to win several art prizes at school. When he was twelve years old his family emigrated to the USA and he later took a variety of art and photographic courses in New York City. In 1941 he married art teacher Phyllis Randle, also of an immigrant family; this time from England.



In 1942 he was a Technical Sergeant in the Intelligence Department of the 2nd Air Division and kept a diary of his journey across the Atlantic, travelling over on the 'Queen Elizabeth'. He describes at length the living conditions on board, bunks stacked in three tiers from

floor to ceiling and the 'odour of stale air emanating from some 400 men jammed with their heavy equipment into that one area. There were huge queues for the two meals served daily, breakfast, then 'dinner' at 3.30pm. He was unimpressed by the 'wet canteen' where some two thousand soldiers fought to get a bottle of Coca-Cola at the same time but impressed by the English and Scottish soldiers also on board who had already fighting for three years. Many of the GIs gambled away the six-day crossing as the Elizabeth sped along at 30 knots. They sailed into the Clyde in the late afternoon and Lund was enchanted by the glorious scenery.



At 2nd Air Divison HQ his job apparently was to illustrate maps but in his diary entry for 25th January 1943 he describes the war as being 'remote', his job office hours being from 8.15 am to 5 pm with vast amounts of paperwork most of which he claimed was unnecessary. He

complains that sitting in a heated office all day they have no idea of what it was like in combat; they had plenty to eat and drink and most of the men were taken up with the pleasures of the flesh!



He was however asked by his Commanding Officer to paint a series of watercolours of the Wing's activities. From that point he was painting pictures of all his surroundings; the aircraft, various portraits of senior staff, watercolours for the Officers' Mess and a Wild West frieze

for the Bar. On leave he toured England painting and sketching towns and countryside, his wife's family in Kent and many friends. 'Everywhere I went I found pictures to be painted. It was the European in me'.



After the war Lund did commercial design commissions, illustrating maps, greeting cards etc. His series of paintings of the 2nd Air Division are now on permanent exhibition in the Memorial Library in Norwich.