Lost in Tibet
The Untold
Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive
By Richard Starks
& Miriam Murcult
This
is the saga of the struggle for survival in an alien land by five
American airmen during World War II.
While
flying their plane on the Hump, the route between China and India,
their plane was blown hundreds of miles off course by a violent
storm. When they ran out of fuel, they were forced to bail out of
the plane into unknown territory. They discovered that they had
landed in Tibet.
The
five Americans were confronted with a culture about which they knew
nothing and were unwillingly drawn into Tibet's struggle to gain
independence from China. Ultimately they undertook the journey to
take them back to their base in India. The journey, taken in the
middle of winter, took them across the barren plains of Tibet, into
unchartered land filled with hazardous and treacherous terrain.
This
adventurous and courageous story is a tribute to the courage, stamina,
and resourcefulness of the five Americans who were confronted with
the almost impossible task of finding their way back to their base.
The reader is given a picture of the society of Tibet in the 1940's
and of its political dealings with the United States.
The
story is based on the interviews with the airmen, letters from them
to their families, and research in the India Office of Records of
the British Library and the US Air Force Historical Research Agency.
The
recreation of these airmen's experiences is well told, easy to read,
and so realistically portrayed that the reader shares their experience.
This
is a welcome addition of a previously unknown experience of individuals
to the history of the Second World War.
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