Santa Barbara AHEPA Chapter 243

“Ships of Mercy: The True Story of the Rescue of the Greeks, Smyrna, September 1922” by Christos Papoutsy; Peter E. Randall Publishers; cloth; 254 pages, with extensive index and illustrations; $30.

Just when you think you know a little something about history, along comes a book full of surprises.

Truth be told, I knew nothing about the rescue of hundreds of thousands of Greek refugees from the quay at Smyrna in 1922. For the Greek community, this event, I’m told by Christos Papoutsy, is as significant as Hiroshima or Pearl Harbor, a war tragedy of earthshaking proportions.

Papoutsy, of Rye Beach, spent 10 years researching the Smyrna Catastrophe, in which many died before many were saved through evacuation. His book, “Ships of Mercy,” tells the story of how these refugees came to be in Smyrna, what happened to them there and how some of them, in the end, escaped.