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

by Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt

• ISBN13: 9781592287857
• ISBN10: 1592287859
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2005-11-01
• Publisher: Lyons Pr

Summary

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. The five were among the first Americans ever to enter the Forbidden City 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. Lost in Tibet is an extraordinary story of high adventure. It also sheds light on the remarkable Tibetan people, just at that moment when they were coming to terms with a hostile outside world.

Author Biography

Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt have traveled extensively in some of the more remote parts of the world. They live in Boulder, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
1. The Forgotten Theater	1	(14)
2. Hitting the Silk	15	(14)
3. India or China?	29	(10)
4. No Shangri-la	39	(8)
5. The Last Blank on the Map	47	(10)
6. A Wholly Erroneous Conclusion	57	(10)
7. Political Quagmire	67	(10)
8. Gokar-la!	77	(10)
9. "This Desolate Lhasa"	87	(10)
10. A Chinese Welcome	97	(10)
11. Gin and Lime?	107	(10)
12. Double Bill	117	(12)
13. R.S.V.P.	129	(8)
14. The Last Word	137	(10)
15. Christmas Eve	147	(12)
16. Dead Men Walking	159	(12)
Afterword	171	(10)
Notes	181	(26)
Bibliography	207	(4)
About the Author	211

Excerpts

"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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Excerpted from Lost in Tibet: The Untold Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive by Richard Starks, Miriam Murcutt
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