Lost in Shangri-la

Definitely a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story. I welled up at work a few too many times, too.

As the blurb states, three months before the end of WWII, a military plane on a sightseeing tour (a perk for the Military staff) crashes in a remote and unvisited part of of the Indonesian state of Papua - this is the western half of the main island of Papua New Guinea. At the time, this was under Dutch control, as with all of Indonesia, which became independent immediately after the Japanese surrender - so while this was all happening. The plane was a Douglass DC-3, known during the war as a C-47 Skytrain, on board were over twenty people, only five of whom survived the impact, and only three the first 24 hours after. These were Lieutenant John McCollom, who lost his twin brother in the crash, Sergeant Kenneth Decker, and WAC (Women's Army Corps) Corporal Margaret Hastings.

This is a very factual description of what happened, there is no embellished, no assumed conversation and as such reads a little unusually, but maintains its legitimacy this way. All content is verified and traceable, which makes this remarkable story all the more interesting. Some reviewers were perhaps put off by the somewhat stilted writing style, but for me it wasn't an issue.

I found it was a quite exciting read. While the actual events were without doubt written in an exciting manner, there were periods of time where they were simply recuperating from their terrible injuries (gangrene effecting the plane crash survivors as much as their initial injuries), where the book turns to more anthropological writing - how the Americans interpreted the natives, and how the natives interpreted the Americans! There was also content covering the history of the region (as it has actually been explored previously).

There are some really interesting aspects to this story, but I won't touch on many, as they would give away large sections of the story, and ruin for a prospective reader, but one of the themes that was carried through much of the text was the lack of recognition given to the Filipino American soldiers who, along with their American leader parachuted in and effected the recovery of the survivors. Particularly the medics, who parachuted directly into to the terribly challenging, but mostly unknown situation to be with the survivors immediately on their discovery. While all of the Filipinos eventually received medals (a Bronze Star for most, the Soldier's Medal for the two medics, and Earl Walter, their Captain - this being the highest non-combat award), the story of the crash and rescue mission was big news, and the Filipinos received only passing mention.

As could be imagined, the press went crazy over the Margaret Hastings, and her time trapped in the Valley with the soldiers, and of course the stone-age natives. The natives were Dani and their whole interaction with the soldiers was interesting, and a unnavigable maze of confusion and misunderstanding, right from the start when the soldiers though the natives took them as women (when really they were feeling their clothes, having thought they were covered in mud) through to the belief that they were spirits and not humans at all. On the other side, the Americans took the natives as a peaceable tribe, when in fact the Dani had agreed with the neighbouring tribes that they would not only not attack the spirits, but would not battle each other until they had left. Had the natives considered the soldiers people, they would have been killed in the first few days.

What really made this book was the interwoven explanations from the contemporary Dani who explained what the natives side of events were, and explained some of the confusions.

Well paced, this had the right balance of background and action, was written in a flowing narrative which made it easy to follow events and progress.

4 stars.