today's South Pacific

Memories of the war in today's South Pacific

The publishers A. H. & A. W.

Reed, who have produced some first rate books in the past, have come up with something special in Battleground South Pacific . Here is a picture book with depth and purpose.

Battleground South Pacific, a luxurious volume of more than 200 pages, with more than 60 pages of plates in full colour and many more in black and white, will be released in September.

It’s the work of Bruce Adams, who went picture-taking in the South Pacific for three months to capture the last remnants of the Pacific War. His aim was to show the old soldiers of every army what it’s all like now—to touch their chords of memory. But it happens that the book does more than that; it captures the atmosphere of today’s South Seas, as well as yesteryear’s.

Bruce Adams and his camera trecked through most parts of New Guinea, the Solomons and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands —all those

parts, anyway, where the toughestl fighting was. But in making thein pilgrimage, Adams and his cameraf give us magnificent pictures ofl today’s towns, today’s people, today’s atmosphere, that I think will mean as much to the old soldiers as the poignant pictures of crashed war planes, wrecked destroyers and unexpected bomb dumps that still litter much of the Pacific 25 years later. (Four pages of Adam’s work in the Pacific follow opposite).

To help Adams’ picture boold achieve its aim, there is a basic descriptive text by Bob Howlettl now of Sydney, who fought witß the Fijians in Guadalcanal. Bui skilled editing by that fine Pacific man of words (and wartime pilot)i Olaf Ruhen, has given the tex; wider meaning and style, for thii book is obviously the work of mam minds, many skills. A competeni Reed executive, Max Smith, cot ordinated the many hands neede« to produce a volume which I thinl deserves to be and will be one o the publishing landmarks on Soutl Pacific themes. Price is $9.95. —SI