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slc54hiwi's review against another edition
5.0
An intense & readable memoir of WW II in the Pacific. Ryan's account of his wartime service in PNG is fascinating.
fourtriplezed's review
2.0
Peter Ryan wrote this memoir not long after his time in New Guinea as an intelligence operative behind enemy lines in 42/43. It was finally published in 1959 to much acclaim. Why? As easy to read as the memoir is it is astonishingly repetitive to the point of being tedious. At 300 pages long it could have been cut by some judicial editing to half the size and been a far better book for that.
The first half is basically time spent by the author alone in the New Guinea jungle with the natives and explaining how they lived and how he learnt the local pidgin dialect.
The second half of the book is much the same except he has a fellow Australian for company and along with some faithful natives go tramping across the Jungles and Mountains in pursuit of intelligence on Japanese movements. Yes some of the locals made life difficult by being uncooperative and even working with the enemy but this is written about in such a nonchalant way that it seemed to hardly be a problem.
In the entire book Peter Ryan was shot at twice by the enemy. Once in rather strange circumstances when the Japanese took pot shots from too far away and near the end of the book in what were no doubt very sad and difficult circumstances where he showed amazing endurance.
Throughout the book I had no idea as to times and dates. Most of the time I had no idea as to what intelligence was gathered. Many claim who have read this that he showed courage in isolation and fatigue. Well yes to a degree but the author gave the impression that he enjoyed every minute of the country side and in fact relished his isolation from other whites and had nothing but praise for the local New Guineans to the point that he made many visits after the war.
As a lad in the 1970’s I worked with an old PNG veteran who told me that his entire war was 99% boredom and 1% absolute fear. That summed this very pedestrian book up.
The first half is basically time spent by the author alone in the New Guinea jungle with the natives and explaining how they lived and how he learnt the local pidgin dialect.
The second half of the book is much the same except he has a fellow Australian for company and along with some faithful natives go tramping across the Jungles and Mountains in pursuit of intelligence on Japanese movements. Yes some of the locals made life difficult by being uncooperative and even working with the enemy but this is written about in such a nonchalant way that it seemed to hardly be a problem.
In the entire book Peter Ryan was shot at twice by the enemy. Once in rather strange circumstances when the Japanese took pot shots from too far away and near the end of the book in what were no doubt very sad and difficult circumstances where he showed amazing endurance.
Throughout the book I had no idea as to times and dates. Most of the time I had no idea as to what intelligence was gathered. Many claim who have read this that he showed courage in isolation and fatigue. Well yes to a degree but the author gave the impression that he enjoyed every minute of the country side and in fact relished his isolation from other whites and had nothing but praise for the local New Guineans to the point that he made many visits after the war.
As a lad in the 1970’s I worked with an old PNG veteran who told me that his entire war was 99% boredom and 1% absolute fear. That summed this very pedestrian book up.
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