TITLE: Lost in Shangri-La
AUTHOR: Mitchell Zuckoff
GENRE: Non-Fiction, Biographies/Memoirs
PUBLISHED: April 26, 2011
RATING: ★★★★
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MOBILISM LINK: Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
Description:
A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II. Award-winning former Boston Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoffunleashes the exhilarating, untold story of an extraordinary World War IIrescue mission, where a plane crash in the South Pacific plunged a trio of U.S.military personnel into a land that time forgot. Fans of Hampton Sides’ Ghost Soldiers, Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor, and David Grann’s The Lost Cityof Z will be captivated by Zuckoff’s masterfullyrecounted, all-true story of danger, daring, determination, and discovery injungle-clad New Guinea during the final days of WWII.
Review: This book started out very interesting and held me riveted for several chapters. Before reading this book, I knew nothing about a plane crash in Shangri-La, Hidden Valley, or Baliem Valley; a very important historical incident with lives lost while a new discovery occurred. Several aspects about the book I did not enjoy...
I can understand why the author told about the background of the survivors and some of the rescue people. However I do not understand why so much detail is provided for others in the story. For example, in chapter 3 the author provides overwhelming detail about Colonel Ray T. Elsmore and how he was willing to share so much information with the press. It seemed like this colonel was more concerned with his name being shown in papers than guarding military secrets.
While still reading chapter 3 the author provides details about two reporters. I am sure these reporters were important in their field but to the average person they are unknown. The author went on to describe these two journalists and how they viewed Shangri-La. I agree discovering the unexplored area was new and everyone wanted to be the first there, similar to Christopher Columbus when he and others first took to the seas exploring.
Early in chapter 4 the author states Elsmore enjoyed all the attention he was receiving. Throughout the story, over and over, Elsmore seemed more concerned with himself and how others perceived him than anything other. Based solely on what Zuckoff wrote I do not like the man. As my father would say he was nothing but a glorified ass kisser and wants everyone to kiss his ass over something that does not amount to a hill of beans.
Reporters couldn’t get enough of Elsmore—one dubbed him the “leading authority on the valley and its people”—and the colonel lapped it up.
In chapter 8 readers learn that Elsmore was not the first person to find Shangri-La. I know this is non-fiction and the truth is usually stranger than fiction, but I wonder if the original explorer even noticed what was happening around him. According to the author, Richard Archbold originally saw and partially explored the valley 7 or more years earlier, once in 1933 and the next in 1936. Here the author provides so much unneeded detail about Archbold. We learn so much about this man that did not pertain to the crash or rescue of the Gremlin Special.
Why do readers need to know that Archbold practiced collecting at his family’s estate in Georgia? Okay so he went on to build a research facility in Florida. Great! That still does not pertain to the rescue mission.
Archbold practiced collecting at the family’s Georgia estate—something akin to a big game hunter preparing for a safari at a zoo—and learned from his many mistakes.
By chapter 10 we learn almost everything about C. Earl Walter. The author starts early describing so much about Walter’s life. So much detail that I felt most was unnecessary. Yes, this is a non-fiction book. But as a reader, I was looking for more of a rescue mission not something describing some of the soldiers while they were growing up.
C. EARL WALTER Jr.’s boyhood revolved around his father, C. Earl Walter Sr. Most of that boyhood was spent in the Philippines, where the elder Walter had moved his wife and toddler son from Oregon to take a job as a lumber company executive. Before the boy was nine, his mother fell ill with malaria. She returned to the United States for treatment, but she so missed her husband and son that she took the next boat back to the Philippines. She died several months later.
Sometimes while reading I felt like I was back in high school history hearing my teacher drone on and on about how great a general MacArthur was. Yes, he was great I agree, but the information provided by the author about MacArthur did not pertain to the rescue mission.
The pictures provided are wonderful. They help carry the story and provide readers with a glimpse of how the natives looked, along with their odd clothing. The author does not provide a more modern picture of Margaret. I understand she passed away in the 1970’s but would have loved to see a different picture of this brave woman. A civilization that very closely resembled the Stone Age in a modern world, I felt this was similar to the book ‘The Land That Time Forgot’.
Yet looked at another way, the survivors’ civilization hadn’t advanced all that far from the culture of the Stone Age warriors wearing penis gourds.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the natives, how they responded to the interlopers in their midst, the way they lived, their limited spoken language. They were essentially a place forgotten by time. A group of people living where everything was simple, though, even with their primitive ways, warring with neighboring tribes, limited types of food, huts for houses an almost peaceful Garden of Eden.
Making war and appeasing spirits wasn’t all the native people did. They built huts and watchtowers, grew sweet potatoes and other vegetables, tended pigs, raised families, and cooked meals. Most of the hard work fell to the women. Men built homes and watchtowers and tilled gardens, which left plenty of time to spare. They devoted that time and energy to war—planning it, fighting it, celebrating its victories, mourning its losses, and planning it anew. In between, they talked about it, sharpened their weapons, pierced their noses so pig tusks would fit into the holes and make them look fierce, and wrapped greasy orchid fibers around their arrows to cause infections if the wounds weren’t immediately fatal. They also spent endless hours scanning for enemy movements from the watchtowers on the edge of the vast no-man’s-land that separated their homes and gardens from their enemies’ identical homes and gardens.
For the tribes to be called primitive they were advanced in some areas where modern man had the knowledge but refused to follow. The Dani and other tribes they practiced abstinence up to five years after the birth of a child. These tribes may have not had knowledge of wheels and pottery, but they knew that frequent/yearly childbearing was harmful to the women. In some ways they were more advanced than people outside their little world.
Skilled warriors had access to more potential wives. This was especially valuable in a culture in which married couples routinely abstained from sex for up to five years after the birth of a child.
I wonder why the author does not provide a special section with the language used by the tribe. This information was provided in the index, but so many other words were also included.
To this reader the saddest part is how the modern world went to this area and forced a change on the tribes. No, they were not educated people and they lived such a primitive life, it is amazing, but how they lived is not for another man to decide. If they choose to live a certain way, what gives another man the right to tell them they are wrong.
“Maggie,” Decker told her, “you ought to write home to the missionaries to stock up on compacts.”
It is sad so many lives were lost on a pleasure trip, a trip that was supposed to be enjoyment and relaxation for the hard working soldiers at Hollandia. The thought that Colonel Prossen was concerned about the moral of all under him showed how much he cared about his fellow man. He fought for his country, but gave his life for the people under him. He was trying to make the hard living conditions a little more enjoyable by providing an afternoon air ride to a new area.
Lately, Prossen had been anxious about the toll Dutch New Guinea was taking on the hundred or so men and the twenty-plus WACs serving directly under him. He wrote to his wife that he tried to relieve the pressures shouldered by junior officers, enlisted men, and WACs, though he didn’t always succeed. “I lose sight of the fact that there is a war going on and it’s different,” he wrote. “My subordinates are also depressed and been here a long time.” He wanted to show them that he valued their labors.
Even though I felt the author provided too much detail, I really enjoyed this book. Most missions similar to this are forgotten quickly. Hopefully this rescue mission will forever be implanted in the minds of our children and these heroes not forgotten. Even if they lost their lives on a pleasure trip the sacrifice was great.
I do recommend this book to any reader with interest in WWII. The book provides information forgotten with time. I also recommend this book to my son who enjoys reading about WWII. He started the book yesterday and already is on chapter 5. Now to find someone who was born before this tragic event happened and see what he or she might remember.