A P.O.W.’s Diary

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30442, 16 May 1964, Page 4

A P.O.W.’s Diary

Into the Smother. By Ray Parkin. The Hogarth Press. 291 pp.

Here is a remarkable book that will surely take its place among the historic “documentaries” of the Second World War. It is a first-hand account of the day-to-day travails of the prisoners of war who built the BurmaSiam railway through deathdealing tropical jungles in 15 terrible months of 1943 and 1944. The author of “Out of The Smoke,” has now reproduced the daily diary he wrote on the spot and kept hidden from his Japanese captors by skilful subterfuge. Mr Parkin says he has waited 20 years before publishing the diary so that “circumstances may not be distorted by prejudice,” but his graphic pencil has nevertheless created a stark indictment of war and a moving account of great fortitude and heroism, suffering and sadistic, callous cruelties. Not all the cruelty was by the Japanese, who, urged on by their High Command, flogged and bashed their captives towards completion of a monumental task—there were indeed, a few human Japanese We are introduced to European officers who made privileged use of the canteen while “other ranks" slogging their hearts out on their jungle labours are dying of starvation; and we met the comparatively few men who steal boots from the bootless and life-saving food from the foodless.

But amidst the gradual deterioration of health and morale, the intense uncomplaining suffering, the skin and bone, the deaths from cholera and dysentery, the malaria attacks, we find the unquenchable devotion of

doctors without medical supplies, their self-sacrifice and improvisation—and among the general body of men a sustaining spark of comradely humour and kindness that refuses to be put out. Mr Parkin, a naval man who survived the sinking of H.M.A.S. Perth, is a gifted artist' and well-read philosopher (the book is copiously illustrated with his on-the-spot drawings), and it is obvious that these attributes kept him mentally balanced during his trials.