...timing couldn't been better: a revised edition of the Parer biography (now titled Damien Parer's War) had just been released, containing even more of George's pictures than previously; including extra material he had recalled when I'd interviewed him for Peter Brune's and my 200 Shots: Damien Parer, George Silk and the Australians at War in New Guinea.

Several copies of Damien Parer's War were promptly despatched, and Marjory tells me that they gave him great pleasure as he recalled his adventures with Damien Parer and his own triumphs in New Guinea where the shot of Raphael Oimbari leading Private Whittington (AWM 014028) to a dressing station outside Buna, together with the vivid sequence of stills George took of the fighting at Gona and Buna, established him as one of the great combat photographers of the Second World War.

On reflection it was appropriate that he would, in his last days, return to his memories of Parer in the Middle East. It was there he came to understand what photography could achieve, and evolved his own methods of capturing the moments that reveal and at times epitomise an entire experience.

George was just twenty-three in 1940 when the Department of Information, the body responsible for propaganda and censorship, sent him to join their photographic unit in the Middle East. At that time the "unit" consisted of one man, the redoubtable Damien Parer. "It was like meeting a twin brother--we didn't stop talking for twenty hours," Silk told me.

How he obtained the job was one of his best stories. Silk wasn't even an Australian; he was born in New Zealand on November 17, 1916, and had learnt all he knew about cameras working in a camera store. Sensing the young man's talent, the proprietor had encouraged George to experiment with the newer, more compact cameras coming onto the market, such as the Rolleiflex, the Contax and the German Leica. Before long, Silk was winning prizes for his more than accomplished sports photography. He'd also become fascinated with documentary films and even shot a few short films. Almost certainly this is why a series of Silk photographs about a single subject will usually tell a story. (To my knowledge...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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