Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I read these books many years ago and found them moving, perhaps 'The Sword and the Blossom' the most moving. This, the third book, attempts to understand the Japanese character as it was experienced by the POWs. It's not pretty, but it is necessary if you want to try to come to grips with quite a lot of the meanings behind the Pacific theatre of WWII.
Parkin's writing is well-balanced, as pointed out. The brutality, sadism and all the other things can't be hidden. Parkin wrestles with the complexity of the Japanese psyche in the war. The POWs are men in extreme situations. Some may not act as well as they may have liked, but Parkin doesn't judge them: who could? There are quietly heroic acts that just seem 'normal', but Parkin doesn't make a big deal about it.
What shines through is the author's humanity. In spite of the brutality, he can appreciate the people he meets, the world around him (e.g. 'the coruscating sea'), and capture it in his sketches.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Ray Parkin's Wartime Trilogy: Out of the Smoke; Into the Smother; The Sword and the Blossom
Both the courage and the inhumanity displayed during wartime are chronicled in these three diaries penned by Ray Parkin, who served during World War II. Engaging narratives and pictures detail his experience on the HMAS Perth in the Sunda Strait battle with the Japanese naval force that eventually sunk his ship. Also recounted are Parkin's 15 months as a prisoner of war, during which he helped construct the Burma-Siam railway. Details of his final 12 months of captivity in a crowded tramp steamer reveal the endurance of soldiers who survived submarine attacks and weathered a typhoon. These stories provide a single man's perspective on the war but also offer insight into the Japanese way of thinking and the traumas of combat.
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