Lost in Tibet: The Untold Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive

From Publishers Weekly
In 1943, five American airmen were returning in a C-87 cargo plane over the "Hump," a treacherous supply route across the Himalayas that pilots flew round the clock to equip Chinese allies against the Japanese during WWII. Despite reports of fair weather, a ferocious storm blew the plane hundreds of miles off course, forcing the crew to parachute into the remote mountains of Tibet just before the plane ran out of fuel and crashed. The men were first held as prisoner-guests in the forbidden city of Lhasa; later, their trek back to India was hampered not only by the impenetrable terrain and mysterious culture they encountered, but by a larger international intrigue over Tibet’s independence. The battle over dominance of the region between Britain and China, then, turns a story of military courage and grit into one of political intrigue. As Britain and China clashed, Tibet found itself controlled by a child leader (the Dalai Lama, the country’s spiritual and political leader, was only eight years old) and in an increasingly vulnerable situation during the war. Determined to remain autonomous despite the mounting political maelstrom, the Tibetans saw the airmen’s unexpected fall from the sky as an opportunity to win the American government to the cause of their independence, while the British originally looked at them as spies. Authors Starks and Murcutt absorbingly recount the political conquest of Tibet through the story of these five young men’s unwitting embroilment in an international incident and their extraordinary journey home. B&w photo insert not seen by PW.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
To support China's efforts against the Japanese in World War II, American forces flew supplies from India to China over the Himalayas. "Flying the hump" was extremely dangerous, but such missions were considered vital to the Allies' efforts. In December 1943, a plane with five American airmen was blown off course and ran out of fuel over Tibet. All successfully bailed out and were reunited on the ground, but because of Tibet's extreme isolation, their return was not certain. Injuries and language difficulties were compounded by the vast cultural differences. The airmen were eventually transported to Lhasa, where the British consul provided support. Political turmoil and impending bad weather forced the men to travel out of Tibet by mule over treacherous terrain. This is a fine story of courage and diplomacy that presents invaluable information on a little-known theater of WWII and insight into the Tibet-China political situation. Danise Hoover
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"This book will be fascinating to anyone even casually interested in the politics of my country." Losang Gyatso, Tibetan artist and actor

"A well-rendered story of WWII action and adventure, one with plenty of twists and operational pointers for future warriors." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Authors Starks and Murcutt absorbingly recount the political conquest of Tibet through the story of these five young men's unwitting embroilment in an international incident and their extraordinary journey home."-- Publishers Weekly on-line

"This is a fine story of courage and diplomacy that presents invaluable information on a little-known theater of WWII and insight into the Tibet-China political situation."


Book Description
A doomed mission sets five young Americans in a forbidden and hostile land.


From the Back Cover
November 1943.

Caught in a violent storm and blown far off their intended course, five American airmen—flying the dangerous Himalayan supply route known as “The Hump”—were forced to bail out just seconds before their plane ran out of fuel. To their astonishment, they found they had landed in the heart of Tibet.
Miraculously, all five survived the jump. But their ordeal was just beginning.
After crossing some of Tibet’s most treacherous mountains, the five airmen rode on borrowed mules into the fabled city of Lhasa. Their arrival was not a matter of choice; instead they were escorted to Lhasa by a suspicious Tibetan government, trapped in a tightening vise between China and the West.
The five were among the first Americans ever to enter the Forbidden City (two years before Heinrich Harrer, author of Seven Years in Tibet), and among the last to see it before the Chinese launched their invasion.
While in Tibet, the five Americans had to confront what, to them, seemed a bizarre - even alien - people. At the same time, they had to extricate themselves from the political turmoil that even then was raging around Tibet’s right to be independent from China.
To avert an international incident - and to assure their own safety - the five men were forced to leave Lhasa in a hurry. They set out, in the middle of winter, on a perilous journey across the Tibetan plateau - only to find themselves caught in a desperate race against time.
Lost in Tibet is an extraordinary story of high adventure, cultural conflict, and political intrigue. It also sheds light on the remarkable Tibetan people, just at that moment when they were coming to terms with a hostile outside world.


About the Author
MIRIAM MURCUTT and RICHARD STARKS have traveled extensively in some of the more remote parts of the world. Among their many expeditions is a walk with pilgrims around the koras of Tibet's greatest monasteries and a trek that followed as much as possible the route taken by the lost airmen of Tibet. They live in Boulder, Colorado.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The storm when it hit was wholly unexpected. From Kumming, Crozier had turned the plane onto a course of tw-eight-zero--almost due west--and for nearly an hour had flown through clear, open skies with the earth unrolling smoothly beneath him. For any pilot flying the Hump, this was as good: no real weight in the hold, good visibility in all directions, the serrated peaks of the Santsung Range still a long way ahead. Even so, Crozier couldn't relax. The tension of flying lay deep within him. It was always there, in the tautness across his shoulders and his neck. On the flight deck aound him there was little in the way of conversation, just a few jokey remarks tossed back and forth over the intercom. Most crews liked to keep it that way. Light and impersonal. They didn't want to invest time and emotion in men they might not see again, men who might soon be dead.



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A well-rendered story of WWII action and adventure, one with plenty of twists and operational pointers for future warriors: "Don't cross mountain ranges. Always go down in valleys."The author of that tip, one of the survivors of a fallen C-87 transport plane, knew whereof he wrote. In December 1943, those GIs were flying over the "Hump," or Himalayas, on their way home from delivering supplies to China. Blown off course by a storm and forced to ditch when their plane ran out of fuel, the men picked their way across the mountains and eventually found a Tibetan village, where they had an education in store: "If the five Americans had thought about Tibet at all," write journalists Starks and Murcutt, "they had done so in terms if caricatures. The average American saw Tibet . . . as a kind of mythical Shangri-la, a country that existed more in the mind than in reality. It was a place they might enjoy reading about, but not one they would actually want to visit." They were right on the last point, for the crewmen found themselves caught up in a Great Game struggle among Tibet, then still free and determined to stay that way, an expansionist China, and an always-in-the-shadows Britain. They were also in danger of being stoned for having broken a taboo, for "no Tibetan, and certainly no foreigner, was ever allowed to look down on a Dalai Lama" as from a passing plane-never mind, as the pilot observed, that any Tibetan who ventured into the hills surrounding Lhasa would stand taller than the nation's ruler. Indeed, the US government later ventured in a face-saving effort, Tibetan forces attacked the GIs as they flew overhead-a lie, though one that helped explain away why, despite the Tibetangovernment's efforts, the Roosevelt administration would never acknowledge that nation's independence, mindful of offending China. For fans of The Burma Road, Into Thin Air, and other tales in the man-vs.-the-elements vein.


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