Ray Parkin's Wartime Trilogy
Out of the Smoke; Into the Smother; The Sword and the Blossom
Paperback Edition
Ray Parkin's famous trilogy of wartime experience is published here for the first time in a single paperback volume.
Opinion
' . . . probably the finest POW writing in English.' (Max Harris, Australian)
'Each book, alone, is a literary masterpiece of Australian military POW experiences but together, a legacy that will last for centuries. Lavishly illustrated with sketches, photographs and maps. No other book covers the scope and depth of this theater of war.' (Center for Research: Allied POWS Under the Japanese)
About this Title
Melbourne University Press is proud to present Ray Parkin's famous trilogy of wartime experience, published here for the first time in a single paperback volume. These brilliant books hum with action, adventure and courage. Honestly and plainly written, they are full of humanity and great wisdom.
Out of the Smoke tells of Ray's experiences as Action Chief Quartermaster in HMAS Perth, which was sunk while engaging an overwhelming Japanese naval force in the Sunda Strait. Two cruisers, HMAS Perth and USS Houston, fought until their ammunition was exhausted. Thus defenceless and surrounded, sunk by four torpedoes and gunfire. It had been a night action, desperate and determined until the inevitable end. A small party of the survivors tried to sail a derelict lifeboat to safety, only to land at a port in enemy hands. In his Introduction to the book, Sir Laurens van der Post describes Out of the Smoke as 'one of the great stories of war at sea'.
Into the Smother tells, direct from the author's diary, of his fifteen months as a POW on the Burma-Siam {Thailand} railway. The construction of this railway remains one of history's most awful instances of man's inhumanity to man. Ray documents with remarkable restraint the horrors and sufferings he and his comrades endured at the mercy of the cruel jungle and the Imperial Japanese Army. The book has an appendix by Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, to whose care Ray had entrusted his secret writings, drawings and paintings when taken to Japan. Into the Smother is impressive in its honesty and inspiring in its evocation of courage and endurance.
The Sword and the Blossom tells of Ray's last twelve months of captivity. Shipped to Japan in an incredibly crowded, derelict tramp steamer, he and his comrades endured submarine attacks and weathered a typhoon with open hatches. They were then taken to a POW camp at Ohama, on the shores of Honshu, where they worked in a coal mine under the Inland Sea. With the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki--one just to the north of them, the other just to the south--the POWs found themselves free among a people who had held over them the power of life and death. The Sword and the Blossom gives the reader a remarkable insight into the Japanese way of thinking, and lights the ghastly experience with magnificent prose.
These classic books are illustrated with Ray Parkin's evocative and detailed drawings and sketches, made secretly at the time.
Table of Contents
Foreword by John Clarke
What Reviewers Have Said
OUT OF THE SMOKE
Introduction by Laurens van der Post
Foreword
1 Sangieng-Inertia
2 Sangieng-Activity
3 Toppers
4 Decision
5 Disillusionment
6 Princes Island
7 Java Head
8 Java Sea
9 Sunda Strait
10 The Wake
11 Limbo
12 Tjilatjap
13 Postscript
Epilogue
INTO THE SMOTHER
Map of the Burma-Siam Railway
Foreword
1 Departure
2 Changi
3 Journey to Thailand
4 Konyu-January
5 Konyu-February
6 Hintok Road-March
7 Hintok Road-April
8 Hintok Road-May
9 Hintok Road-June
10 Hintok River-July
11 Hintok River-August
12 Alone-August
13 Kinsayok-September
14 Kinsayok-October
15 Kinsayok-November
16 Hintok Road Again-December
17 Hintok River Again-January
18 Tarsau Again-February
19 Out of the Smother-A Postscript
Appendix: Medical Experiences in Japanese Captivity (by 'Weary' Dunlop)
THE SWORD AND THE BLOSSOM
Glossary
Author's Note
Prologue
I Survivors
II The Voyage
III The Mine
IV The Way Out
Falling Leaf
Epilogue
About the Author
Melbourne-born Ray Parkin (1910-2005) was an omnivorous reader and gifted artist who largely educated himself and became a fine maritime painter. He spent eighteen years in the Royal Australian Navy, including three years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese during World War 2. After the war he became a waterfront tally clerk and wrote of his wartime experiences in Out of the Smoke, Into the Smother and The Sword and the Blossom, all published to critical acclaim by The Hogarth Press, London, in the 1960s.
After his retirement Ray spent many years researching, writing and illustrating his remarkable, award-winning work H. M. Bark Endeavour, published in 1997 by Melbourne University Press.
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