Lost In Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II [Paperback]

Reason for Reading: I love true war stories but I also love true survival stories, so this doubly appealed to me.

A sight-seeing plane carrying 24 enlisted passengers across the jungle of modern day New Guinea (who were stationed nearby) crashed and burned leaving a total of three survivors in a remote valley inhabited by tribes who mostly had not seen white men before and still lived in the stone age. This books gives the complete story of these people, enlisted and native. Prior to the fateful plane trip we meet the individuals who will be on board and learn their story, how and why they came to be aboard and some who just barely missed being passengers. We learn of life at the base of Hollandia where they were stationed, paratroopers on standby, enlisted soldiers waiting for deployment to somewhere else (where the action is) and a group of WACS fulfilling their enlisted duties.

We go through terrifying details of how the crash was probably caused though no blame has ever been laid by officials and the gory aftermath of the scene. Of the three survivors, only one is unharmed, the other two have serious burns and other injuries and thus starts their survival story where they eventually meet up with the natives of the land. Mostly a war-like people, but little do the survivors know that they are fulfilling a legend of the natives.

The main focus of the book though, is in the rescue of these people, as others are sent down to tend to their medical needs and set up a base of operations. The valley is surrounded by mountains too high and cross winds too dangerous. It is too narrow for an airstrip landing. The outside terrain is rough, dangerous, inhabited by known cannibalistic tribes and the island is also inhabited by hidden Japanese units. Rescue seems near impossible from any route: across land, by water or by air. But as the incident becomes known back in America and the one survivor a pretty WAC, reaches the interests of Hollywood, the pressure is doubled to make sure the rescue attempt is successful. The final solution is quite the thing and could only have happened at this time in history.

A captivating story that starts with daily enlisted life on a tropical island where no real wartime action was being seen at this point, an horrific plane crash and the emotional and mental endurance of the survivors. The interesting transformation of the (I won't say white men as many of them were Filipino) "civilized" people's opinion's of the natives whom they regularly called "savages" at first to the the respectful attitude they held when they said their tearful goodbyes. This is a good read, a quick read and a non-fiction story that keeps the reader reading and enthralled. The author's personal interviews with some of the survivors and having gone back to the scene of the crash and talked to those natives who were children when the events happened he's managed to bring the natives' perspective of the events to the reader as well. An enjoyable and fascinating read.

From the time I read the book's jacket through to its conclusion, I kept thinking about the number of still untold stories from all sides of World War Two. The author deserves kudos for researching this rescue of three survivors of a horrific plane crash in the jungles of New Guinea. Comparisons to James Hilton's Lost Horizon adds some interesting flavor but the book's charm is in the respect paid to the bravery of the survivors and rescuers, the environment and indigenous peoples, and the loss of twenty-one lives. The stoicism shown by Margaret Hastings, John McCollom, and Kenneth Decker is amazing. It is no surprise that at the time they were made celebrities by the military and media. It is good that their story has been rekindled and the supporting characters given prominence (Alexander Caan, a rogue, deserves his own biography). One complaint is the marketing of the book does not match its content especially the depiction of local tribes - it does not honor the spirit of actual events.

If you like survival stories, Lost in Shangri-La is a good one. I read this book to learn about the people on Dutch New Guinea, the island where the plane crashed since I have only heard about them from two other sources, both fundamentalist Christian. I wanted to hear a description from a non-Christian point of view. I was not disappointed.

If you have read Don Richarson's Peace Child and Lords of the Earth, or Bill Gothard organization's Pineapple Story, then you have heard of these stone age natives before. If you recall the difficulty of translating the holy scriptures into a language that had no concept of peace or sacrificial love; if you recall the culture that had no concept of how to use the wheel because the terrain is so rugged a wheeled vehicle cannot be used, you will appreciate this account of trying to rescue three persons, two of whom were seriously injured.

Even as a very young reader of Peace Child, I thought how wonderful it could be if the Bible I knew were translated into a form that would make sense to us today in North America. The Shack is the nearest thing to my old dream. If you have read The Shack, you have profitted from the translation of the Bible into a language that had no equivalents for Christian ideas. The author of The Shack is a child of one of the translators of this stone age language in the valley of Shangri-La.

Because the residents of the valley thought the three white survivors were gods, the three remained alive. Their rescuers were also white and were also thought to be gods. There was no way out of the valley but on foot, so the white people had to stay for quite a long time until the injured survivors could travel. During that time, one person wrote a journal recording as much as possible about the native population. This is what I read the book to hear. The book does a good job of looking at the crash from both points of view, from those who fell into the valley and those they fell into.

Lost in Shangri-La is easy reading and brings to life a time and place in history that will never be repeated. This plane crash was the beginning of the end for a culture that was locked in time and had 2000 ways to say they had hit some one but only two words to express the idea of colour. I think it was well worth the read to get another point of view on the culture of the valley. The survival, search, and rescue part of the story was like frosting on the cake.