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A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
Harper
May 2011
On Sale: April 26, 2011
400 pages
ISBN: 0061988340
EAN: 9780061988349
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction History
On May 13, 1945, twenty-four American servicemen and WACs
boarded a transport plane for a sightseeing trip over
“Shangri-La,” a beautiful and mysterious valley deep within
the jungle-covered mountains of Dutch New Guinea. Unlike the
peaceful Tibetan monks of James Hilton’s bestselling novel
Lost Horizon, this Shangri-La was home to spear-carrying
tribesmen, warriors rumored to be cannibals. But the pleasure tour became an unforgettable battle for
survival when the plane crashed. Miraculously, three
passengers pulled through. Margaret Hastings, barefoot and
burned, had no choice but to wear her dead best friend’s
shoes. John McCollom, grieving the death of his twin brother
also aboard the plane, masked his grief with stoicism.
Kenneth Decker, too, was severely burned and suffered a
gaping head wound. Emotionally devastated, badly injured, and vulnerable to the
hidden dangers of the jungle, the trio faced certain death
unless they left the crash site. Caught between man-eating
headhunters and enemy Japanese, the wounded passengers
endured a harrowing hike down the mountainside—a journey
into the unknown that would lead them straight into a
primitive tribe of superstitious natives who had never
before seen a white man—or woman. Drawn from interviews, declassified U.S. Army documents,
personal photos and mementos, a survivor’s diary, a
rescuer’s journal, and original film footage, Lost in
Shangri-La recounts this incredible true-life adventure for
the first time. Mitchell Zuckoff reveals how the determined
trio—dehydrated, sick, and in pain—traversed the dense
jungle to find help; how a brave band of paratroopers risked
their own lives to save the survivors; and how a cowboy
colonel attempted a previously untested rescue mission to
get them out. By trekking into the New Guinea jungle, visiting remote
villages, and rediscovering the crash site, Zuckoff also
captures the contemporary natives’ remembrances of the
long-ago day when strange creatures fell from the sky. A
riveting work of narrative nonfiction that vividly brings to
life an odyssey at times terrifying, enlightening, and
comic, Lost in Shangri-La is a thrill ride from beginning to
end.
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