Lost in Shangri-La

The NY Times bestselling “Lost in Shangri-La” by Mitchell Zuckoff, published in 2011, is one of the best true rescue stories I’ve ever read with its accurate and lucid reporting, immense and complicated research backdrop, and the inspirational message it invokes. Near the end of World War II, twenty-four members of the Armed Forces stationed in New Guinea took an aerial sightseeing trip in a C-47 transport plane to observe a newly discovered jungle paradise with sparkling villages and beautiful people. The remote location in the wilds of New Guinea suddenly became more than a curiosity when the plane crashed, killing all but three passengers. Now the three survivors, a spunky WAC, a young lieutenant whose identical twin brother had died in the crash, and a sergeant who gamely struggled with horrific injuries, were stranded in this remote location. Zuckoff actually traveled to the crash site, spoke with the natives who recalled or knew of the intrepid trio, and nosed around the wreckage and the graves of those who died. He tells the story of their life without food, little water, and no protection from the elements. He describes their constant pain from injuries, the fear of encroaching gangrene, and the torment of being stranded without communications or knowledge of any effort at rescue attempts amidst natives they couldn’t understand. The natives were not the golden beings as rumored, but were indeed savages who would eat human flesh if it were convenient. But despite their ferocious appearance, they made every effort to make life passable for the strangers they didn’t know, didn’t know where they came from, and couldn’t even communicate with. The Americans were finally spotted by rescue aircraft spurring a rescue effort that featured supply airdrops, parachutists, heroic medical intervention, an unlikely extraction method to retrieve them from their remote location, and eventually their return to civilization. Many people were involved, much money was expended, many lives were put at risk, and the successful rescue makes readers feel both anxiety and relief as the story progresses. Zuckoff is masterful in his handling of the many details that make up this complicated story. He recreates the tremendous surges of emotions experienced by the survivors, the rescuers, the natives, and the family and friends suffering at home. This story is not to be missed. Heroes are plentiful. Emotions are raw. Suffering is agonizing. Decisions are seemingly foolish, yet prove astute. This might be the best book of its kind you will ever read. Schuyler T Wallace Author of TIN LIZARD TALES

With the subject matter (plane crash survivors stranded in New Guinea) and press this book has gotten, it'd be easy to think this is a thriller. It's not. It's still a historical non-fiction book -- it just reads like a very interesting one. 4 stars: -I liked how the author integrated first person accounts and journal entries with what we know today. It makes for a richer read because you're essentially getting 3 sides to the story: the survivors' 1945 account; the natives' story, based on oral tradition and childhood memories, told today; and information historians and anthropologists gathered for decades after the crash. -Zuckoff is objective. He addresses racial and cultural stereotypes without being heavy-handed. He doesn't blame characters for their views, but instead points out their errors. More of a "today, anthropologists know..." instead of "it's ridiculous he'd think the natives were dangerous cannibals." -It could have been a little more cohesive -- Zuckoff seems to jump around a bit. For example, he could transition better from one person's background/account to the next person's story. I noticed some people thought there was too much detail about the key players' backgrounds. I think the detail helps shape the characters. For example, reading about why and how each of them ended up stationed in New Guinea makes their survival in Shangri-la even more remarkable. For me, it was more about how the detail was presented than the quantity. -I think this book would appeal to a wide-range of audiences -- I'm not a World War II buff and I don't read a ton of historical non-fiction. The story is intriguing, the writing has a good balance between providing context and moving the story along, and it's a manageable length. Tip: I think the way this book is being marketed ("real-life adventure thriller!!!!") could set some readers up to be disappointed. If you're a fiction reader, go into this remembering this isn't a "story inspired by true events," but rather an actual account of true events. It'd be like watching an engaging documentary of King George VI instead of the movie The King's Speech -- they're both good but they do different things. That said, this is still a remarkable story worth reading.

This is a WW11 history book that every high school student in the USA should be required to read before receiving a diploma to graduate. It is very well researched, documented, and details that should be known widely. As a history buff I'm appalled that I never knew any of this. Exceptional story. Thank you to Mr. Zuckoff.

Mitchell Zuckoff has unearthed a compelling story of a lost world amid the global conflagration of WWII. Under his hand, however, the story's facts aren't given their just deserts. But here's the story, writ small: A group of American army types stationed in New Guinea as Allied forces push relentlessly toward Japan decide to take a military version of a tourist flight to see an unspoiled area of this unspoiled island. The plane crashes (due to pilot error?) and only three survive: Corporal Margaret Hastings, Tech Sergeant Kenneth Decker, and Lieutenant John McCollom. McCollom survives with minimal injuries, but Decker and Hastings are severely injured. Luckily, the USAAF is able to locate the three, send paratroopers and parachuting medics to treat their wounds and feed them until a method could be devised to rescue the three. Meanwhile, the hapless survivors - and their ad hoc rescuers - are confronted by New Guinea tribesmen, and these lost people from a lost world and American military personnel form emotional bonds of sorts. In the end, the rescue is an exotic one: a glider is guided into the area, and those on the loaded onto the glider are snared on a cable by an Air Corps plane. The story's details, as depicted by Zuckoff, were apparently all too brief to make a full length book, and it seems to this reader that, no doubt at the urging of agent or editor, the author added a lot of fluff to fill out the pub biz's book length demands. as a result, a book that could have been a suspenseful page-turner - coupled with this encounter with lost people - seems diluted with minutiae about the primary characters, their families, even that of peripheral characters. One of the skills of both fiction and non-fiction writing is parceling the story out in ways that keep the story's energy building - until its climax and denouement. I've always been one, whether reviewing a finished book or critiquing one in progress, to honor the author's strategy in orchestrating a story, in unwrapping the characters, both amid a vivid background. With Zuckoff's story, however, I'm fatally tempted to critique: He should have dropped the too-detailed background information on the army unit itself, the families, et al, and instead dwelled more on the irony of the story - the reason for the flight, who went, who survived (and didn't), and how the surviving trio, and the first tier of rescuers, managed to reach stasis in this forbidding but beautiful environment - all against the backdrop of a world at war. But stasis here wasn't a comfortable one (and this is where the confrontation of cultures comes in), as our intrepid bunch encountered and slowly became accommodated by the local tribesmen. I should quit this harangue here, hoping you get my point. I don't want to say that the author is a poor writer. To the contrary, his research was formidable and thorough. There are moments of great prose here, and moments of elation, pathos and whimsy - enough to enthrall readers, despite the roadblocks thrown in their way. Still, this is a great story, and readers will learn from it as they enjoy it.

This book describes a real event during the island-hopping phase of WW2 in the Pacific. In the steep mountains of New Guinea, a hidden valley was home to a large population of natives who had no knowledge of the world beyond the valley--until it was spotted from the air by fliers stationed at air fields along the coast. Soon, the valley was the destination of sight-seeing flights, but these only flew over, the valley having no place for a safe air field, and the rim of the valley being near the altitude limit of the available aircraft. To reach the valley, the planes had to fly a twisted path through passes in the mountains. One day, an officer decides to reward his staff, including a number of WACs, with a trip to see the valley in a C47. Then the trouble starts! The pilot is the only one who is familiar with the complex route , and he soon is distracted by socializing with the passengers, leaving the plane to an inexperienced co-pilot. They fail to clear a ridge, and the result is a fiery crash. There are 3 survivors, two of whom have serious injuries. This book is the story of how they survived and finally got home, To do so, they had to make their location, well off the intended course, known to searchers; deal with their medical needs; and deal with the natives, who vastly out number them, and for whom the chief entertainment is war among their numerous clans! This book is well written, and can be read as an real-life adventure story. It is also a cautionary tale of how a pilot's inattention can lead to disaster. Reading the accident reports that appear in Aviation Week, it appears that this still has not been fully learned.

Sunday I started reading the most terrific book: "Lost in Shangri La," a true story. A plane crashed in uncharted territory in central New Guinea in 1945 during WW II, about a month after FDR died.. War had just ended in Europe but was still raging in Pacific. There were three survivors, a WAC and two army officers, all of whom received injuries of varying degrees in the crash. The book tells the story of how they escaped the crash and were eventually rescued. Once rescuers spotted them and realized there were survivors of the crash , they had no way to get to them. They crashed in an area that was not only in a remote valley surrounded by mountains, which had never been mapped, but the natives there had very limited exposure to the outside world. These natives were rumored to be cannibals. Hard to imagine in an era of GPS that there could have been someplace so remote only 66 years ago. In addition, Japanese soldiers who had become detached from their battalion were believed to be hiding out there. This story was essentially lost. The author Mitchell Zuckoff saw a news clipping about it while he was looking for something else. Zuckoff recreated it from letters, diaries and army records. He also interviewed the one survivor who was then still alive and family members of others. The story of how he tracked it all down is amazing in itself; quite a piece of detective work. This book is page turner and a really fun read. Zuckoff has a lively and engaging style. It is also amazing that he was able to create such a vivid and detailed account.

I had never even heard of this story and I am a World War 2 history buff. It was great to discover something new, to me, about the era. This book is well researched and probably the best documented book I have ever seen. The author has gone to great lengths to piece together the multitude of information and bring it together in one coherent remarkable story. At one point I found myself clenching my gut during the final rescue attempt. That has never happened to me before when reading a book. It reads like a movie and I enjoyed this book very much. The author obviously takes his craft very seriously. It made me respect books written by journalists and their masterful skill of research and gathering information. Thank you to the author and the many resources that added to this book to give me a glimpse of this very special journey. This book also gave me respect for the Military and the great lengths they go to honor the dead and save the living. Great effort and expense was given to achieve this task. I would have never known of it if not for this book. My life has been enriched from reading this book. Thank you again.

I did not know anything about this book until my son from California while visiting me in Michigan told me about "Lost in Shangri-La" by M.Zuckoff. Shangri-La reminded me of that classic novel "Lost Horrizon" which was later made into a movie. It was a place in Tibet where everyone enjoyed youth and longevity. But when one leaves that place, he or she will grow very old at once and may die. That is pure fiction. However, "Lost in Shangri-La" by Zuckoff is not fiction but a true story which happened in New Guinea. If this Guinea is new, where is the old? The old is the French-speaking nation in West Africa called Guinea. The new is the largely unexplored big island in the Southeast Asian region in the Pacific. In 1545,the Spanish explorers called it New Guinea because they thought that its people resemble those of Africs's Guinea. Later when they left, the Dutch took control of Indonesia (Netherlands Indies) and renamed the island Niew Guinea. Unexplored areas make one think of the Amazon in South America or the rainforests of Africa and Southeast Asia. But how many of us think of New Guinea? If you want more information and history of this large island, just log into the Internet and Google it. I thought it was worthwhile to familiarize with this exotic region which in the map does resemble a bird of paradise. "Lost in Shangri-La" is a true account in 1945 New Guinea during WW2. One part of that land was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army. The other part was occupied by the Allies which included an American base. It was in this part that the story was centered on. The American soldiers were to wrench the nearby Philippines from the enemy but waiting a long time for those orders was boring to the troops. Therefore Col. Prossen in the meantime decided to give these bored soldiers a sight-seeing tour of New Guinea by air. Flying over a region overlooking a beautiful valley with its pristine forests and rivers led them to nickname the region as Shangri-La. Then suddenly the plane named Gremlin Special accidentally crashed into it killing all 24 passengers except 3 people who survived . They were Lt. John McCollom, Sgt. Kenneth Decker and Army WAC (Women Army Corps) Cpl. Margaret Hastings. McCollum was unscathed but Decker and Hastings sustained wounds which became infected and gangrenous. Imagine the terrifying ordeal that they have to go through to survive in this unknown jungle. But their final encounter with primitive stone-age people who looked cannibalistic and headhunter types was equally frightening. However, these primitive natives who have never before seen white people thought the 3 survivors were "spirits' or "gods". These "spirits" tried to befriend the natives but this was risky and unpredictable. At the same time, the 3 survivors waited and hoped for their military to conduct a search and rescue them. Eventually, rescuers appeared consisting of American Army Officer named Earl Walters, Jr and his willing Filipino paratroopers who parachuted somewhat blindly into the vast area. Their perilous trek through the thick rain forest with its dangers and obstacles was like a journey into the unknown and made the reader of the book feel that he or she was actually with them. They eventually found the survivors and also encountered the unpredictable primitive stone age natives. However, this is only a review and the readers should find out for themselves the frightening,surprising and sometimes emotional events that occurred. The bravery and endurance of both rescuers and survivors like those of Margaret Hastings and Kenneth Decker despite their horrible festering wounds were all highly commendable. This true story is extensively researched by the author and its authenticity is backed by documents, photographs, diaries, interviews with survivors and their relatives and friends and fascinatingly by the present day natives of the same Dani Tribe whose ancestors were the isolated stone-age primitive people of "Shangri-La". The book is a page turner. I advise that if you have to get up at 6 or 7 am to go to work, close the book before midnight,place a bookmark and continue reading the next day. I myself tried to follow that rule but sometimes I break it by reading way past midnight because of my curiosity to know what went on in the next chapter. That was not good, because I did not feel good the next day. I kind of agree with one reviewer who cited that there are paragraphs which seemed to be not related to the story, like the author delving too much on the background of almost every individual including their childhood,family, schooling and careers,etc. I also tend to skip some of these paragraphs. But to some, this information appeared necessary. That is why I placed only 4 stars ( if there were 4 and a half, I probably would select that rating ). Still, this true account is gripping and the author has a way of making you feel that you were actually in that "Shangri-La". I strongly recommend reading the book including its epilogue, acknowledgements and notes,etc. and see for yourself.