Customer Reviews

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

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In 1943 during WWII, five U.S. airmen flying the "Hump" between Burma and the U.S. ally Nationalist China were blown off course into Tibet in a storm and bailed out of their plane before it crashed. After an arduous trek across the forbidding Tibetan mountainous terrain, they arrived in the capital of Lhasa--only to find themselves at the center of precarious international affairs. The Chinese were trying to take over Tibet. Since the U. S. was an ally of China in the war against Japan, the Tibetans could not believe that the American airmen were not somehow involved with China's hostile aims toward their country. The Chinese were concerned that the airmen would be witnesses to their actions taken to occupy Tibet even while the U. S. government was trying to keep the Chinese movements from becoming widely known. The authors tell this complex, engaging tale clearly, skillfully keeping its different elements in balance while keeping a focus on the plight of the airmen resented by both Tibet and China and dealt with at arm's length by the U. S. until they made their timely overland escape to India with the aid of British citizens in the region who were acting as surrogates for the American government. The authors, both journalists, recount the full story of this little-known episode of WWII that has heretofore received only passing attention. From their travels to mountainous areas of Asia, they bring a special sense of the five airmen's struggles to survive in the Tibetan terrain at the beginning and again at the end of their incredible story.

This book grabs your attention at several levels. First off, it's a top-notch survival story about five WWII airmen whose aircraft, blown off-course, crashes in the mountains of forbidden Tibet. The story describes how the men manage to survive - only to find themselves placed under house arrest by suspicious Tibetan authorities, leaving them to an uncertain fate. Once you think they're about to gain their freedom, the politics change and they're forced to race against time to escape back to civilization making an equally arduous winter trek across the Tibetan plateau.

It reminds one of Shackleton's adventures, but with Kafka overtones and no water. Intertwined with the adventure is the war-time political intrigue surrounding the battle for Tibet between sometimes friends sometimes adversaries, China, Britain and the United States; perhaps the last vestiges of the Great Game so well described by Peter Hopkirk in his famous book on the subject.

Throughout the book you're continually amazed at the fortitude and adaptability of these five very ordinary, young Americans and their struggle to adapt to an alien culture completely unknown to the outside world. Of equal interest is the post script which follows the men into later life showing how this harrowing adventure stamped a lasting imprint on their character.

Rebeccasreads highly recommends LOST IN TIBET as a fascinating recollection of a WWII drama when five American airmen were flying their C87 over The Hump, got blown off course & had to bail out onto The Roof of the World.

In 1943, Robert Crozier, Harold McCallum, Kenneth Spencer, John Huffman & William Perram were out of fuel & lost in the clouds & the Himalayas. With no time for their parachutes to open the five airmen landed in the snow on the same mountain, all but one within hailing distance. After sleeping the night in their niches, they made their way down to a settlement in the valley where they were received by the village leader & met their first Tibetans, who were fascinated by these men who fell from the sky.

Summoned to Lhasa by the Tibetan government, the five airmen, following their guides & riding little ponies, trekked up & down mountains to The Forbidden City where they met with unrelenting hostility from the citizens, a feast by the Chinese mission commander, & eventually, the sanctuary of the British delegation.

How they got back to India, how they were received in America, what happened in Tibet after they left, an Afterword about the five American airmen, & the key players who helped them, plus a Notes section round out a tale very well told.

Could not put LOST IN TIBET down! Unique & engrossing, ably told by two passionate mountain travelers with a host of cultural & historic details.

My dad never confided in anyone about the true story. All we knew as kids was the story about how he split his chin open when parachuting out of a plane.
I read the entire book in one evening and have shared it with many friends....
The fact that I am alive to even read this is amazing given the obstacles they had to overcome to get back home.
The politics behind his story I found so amazing and often wondered if he really was privy to the entire truth. Afterall he was only 19 at the time.
I highly recommend this to all as a great read to anyone who loves a real life drama about war.

Lost In Tibet is not your typical WWII book. It is the story of five men who were forced to jump from their plane somewhere over Tibet. How they got there and how they get back to their base in India is an amazing tale of bravey and survival. The reader is left to wonder how these men were able to do it. Even though the book includes no battles, and no fighting it is still a WWII story that must be read. You will not be disappointed. A sad footnote is how the Tibetans were treated by the Chinese after they invaded in 1950 and how the rest of the world, and the United Nations stood by and did nothing to help.

I enjoyed this book because I was a pilot flying the "Hump" at the same time these men were. Their story is exciting, well written and spell binding and will interest those who enjoy adventure. Almost a thousand aircraft were lost on the "aluminum trail" between India and China. A lot was learned in that operation at the expense of the lives of the young inexperienced airmen who took part. Lost In Tibet gives one an insight of the flying conditions we experienced and also the complicated wartime politics in the Tibetan area of that time. It's a good "read".

Lost in Tibet is a rare kind of book, that gives more than it promises. It deals with an apparently remote and forgotten, or better not renowned episode of WWII. During a flight on "The Hump", the airway help provided by the USA to China, an aircraft carrying five not well acquainted militaries, gets lost in a storm and crashes in a remote Tibetan valley. With great difficulties and much suffering the five survive and are conducted to Lhasa. In 1943 Lhasa was exactly how we see it in Harrer's "Seven years in Tibet", a forbidden and xenophobic city, where only Englishmen and Chinese were accepted and tolerated (making exception only for Harrer and Aufschneider, which were Austrians). The arrival of the Americans is widely misinterpreted by the touchy Tibetans fearfull of Chinese invasion and they are object of a diplomatic upheaval.
They are "guests" first of the Chinese and finally of the British delegation. After a long permanence the finally receive the permission to leave Lhasa and undertake a terrible journey back to India in the Tibetan winter on snowridden passes.
The interest of the book lies naturally in the story, which for me was completely unknown, but expecially in how the authors make all the possibile connections with history and crossreference the whole episode to contemporary documents and successive interviews with the protagonists and their acquaintaces.
We learn of the quality and entity of airway traffic on the Hump, together with political problems of Tibet in those years before Chinese occupation. We meet interesting people such as the Chinese Kung and the Englishman George Sheriff and his wife Betty with their love for himalayan flora. We understand the geography of the Tibetan plateau rivers.
The book is deeply researched and a great amount of work lies behind its fast snappy prose. The journalistic cut is evident, and the most information is passed in the least number of words. At moments I had the impression of a TV special.
Excellent and instructive read.

Not a typical story about World War II. Five airmen parachute from their crippled supply airplane and end up lost in Tibet. At that time, Tibet was somewhat independent from China. The airmen's landing in Tibet causes a huge political firestorm between Great Britain, Tibet, and China. The airmen are in the middle of this. The result is a diplomatic balancing act as the airmen leave Tibet.

This is a nice little story about World War II. The authors write a readable entertaining book about the story of the men and the magic land of Tibet. This is a very enjoyable read.

I found the book to be most informative and am quite amazed at the amount of research that must have gone in to the creation of this book.
I thoroughly recommend it for anyone interested in Lhasa in 1942 and the adventurous world that the pilots had to live in during those times.
The political intrigue is quite interesting to boot!

This book was simply enthralling! It provides a fantastic glimpse of Tibet prior to the vile takeover by the Chinese. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Tibet, or the role of the United States in Asia during WWII.