Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
Mitchell Zuckoff
Harper Perennial
Nonfiction, History/True Stories
Themes: Airborn Adventures, Diversity, Soldier Stories, Wilderness Stories
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Description
In 1945, as the Second World War neared its end, an incredible news story grabbed headlines across America and around the world: a plane crash in the unexplored depths of Papau New Guinea, leaving the three survivors stranded in a "lost world" of primitive, possibly cannibalistic headhunting tribes and inhospitable terrain. How the Americans got there, how they survived, and how the military mounted an audacious rescue kept the public riveted for weeks, but today the tale is nearly forgotten. Using original articles and records and interviews with the few survivors who experienced the events firsthand, the author recounts the story as it unfolded, a story filled with danger, bravery, despair, and larger-than-life characters.
Review
Another random Libby audiobook to make work somewhat less tedious, Lost in Shangri-La delivers just
what it promises, a true-life story that rivals fiction. From the rough-sketch history of the region and the war
and what Americans were doing there in the first place to the "discovery" of the lost valley - technically for
the second time in "civilized" history, but the pilots didn't know that at the time - through the crash, the
rescue, and the fates of the various people involved, Zuckoff spins a decent yarn. He even includes commentary
and interviews with the natives (or their descendants), offering the "other side" viewpoint and how cultural
misunderstandings almost made things so much worse. From the start, the Americans viewed the locals as
Eurocentric cultures so often do, with a mix of condescension and vague revulsion. Projecting their own ideas
onto a people they only ever glimpsed from airplanes until the crash, they decided it looked like a peaceful
primitive paradise and dubbed the "lost" valley Shangri-La, after the fictional isolated utopia that had evolved
beyond war - a truly ironic name, given that the natives of the valley were essentially in a perpetual state of
intertribal combat, if one often lacking the devastating vitriol and sheer scale of atrocities practiced by
"civilized" nations. Treating another culture as a tourist attraction, a day trip to relieve the tedium of
military base life, is what led to the tragedy to begin with, costing the lives of almost everyone on board the
plane save three... and even their survival is a near thing, with serious injuries and the onset of infection and
gangrene in the jungle environment. Back at the base, rescue efforts are hampered by the remoteness and high
altitude of the crash site, plus the risk of complications from both natives and enemy soldiers (Japanese
soldiers were known to be scattered across the islands in the jungle), with luck both good and bad eventually
leading to an audacious, risky rescue plan. Along the way, the survivors and rescuers end up reassessing their
opinions of the locals; while they never did truly understand the native language or culture, they did come to
see them as real people, not stereotypes or subhumans. In the epilogue, Zuckoff tells what happened to all the
players after the rescue and later in their lives... even, sadly, what happened to the native tribes. There was a
local legend about "sky spirits" whose return would herald the end times, and unfortunately that prediction came
all too true, as the modern "Shangri-La" is nothing at all like the paradise first encountered by outsiders in
the 1940's.
Given the time since the events occurred, there are some gaps now and again, and a few parts felt glossed over
or thin. Still, it tells a decent story.