While History Passed by Jessie Elizabeth Simons

While History Passed

The Story of the Austrailian Nurses who were prisoners of the Japanese for three and a half years.

by Jessie Elizabeth Simons

William Heinemann, 1954 [Reprint], black and white photographic frontispiece, black and white photographic plates, black and white illustrations in text, hardcover, dust-jacket in Mylar sleeve

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing to edges and corners, previous owners inscription on front end-paper, a little scuffing to end-papers, Mylar protected dust-jacket shows some edge and shelf wear with some rubbing, creasing, small chips and tears to edges and corners, tip of spine missing (see photographs)

"This book tells how Australian women found themselves in the front line of battle, and how they reacted.  The author is modest to a fault, but the story itself pays high tribute to the quality and courage of these women - sixty-five in all - who as members of the Australian Army Nursing Service were evacuated from blazing Singapore, just ahead of the invading Japanese.  Off the coast of Sumatra their ill-fated ship, Vyner Brooke, was bombed and sunk.
Sister Simons writes with engaging humour, and the power that springs from simplicity.  the reader lives with her and her fellow nurses from the time of their leaving Singapore; the bombing of their transport; the many hours of clinging to rafts as they drifted towards a hostile shore; on through a succession of prison camps, until the day of liberation came."