Ray Parkin`s Wartime Trilogy – Out of the Smoke/into the Smother/the Sword and the Blossom 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.