Lost In Shangri - la A True Story Of Survival, Adventure, Most Incredible Rescue Mission Of Ww Ii

It was near the extent of World War II and a mixed crowd of 24 WACS and soldiers boarded a C - 47 - the Horde Air Corps workhorse aircraft - for a trip through " Shangri - La " since they would see it from the air but who knows what happened, the C - 47 went down in the middle of the New Guinea tangle that was inhabited variously by the Japanese and maddened tribesmen recognized owing to the Dani.

Mitchell Zuckoff ' s account of their unpleasant tale of survival, despite grievous wounds and loss is an noted peruse that has you on the edge of your seat from takeoff to the crash station 21 or 24 people are killed.

Two womanliness and a woman, all horribly maimed one way or another, faced the trackless New Guinea jungle with no food, little or no water and no way to contact their headquarters. It seemed to be a case of whether the Japanese or the Dani, rumored to be a cannibalistic, as well as a brutal tribe.

If this had happened earlier in the war, it is highly unlikely there would have been any survivors and if there were they would either have been guests of the Japanese, who were known to covet New Guinea until almost the end of the war, grudgingly pulling divisions out to fight the U. S. when they landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima and more. The vision of the Japanese General Staff was one with horseblinders. They could only see two major campaigns, the Manchukuo ( China ) campaign where upwards of 25 divisions were still held in reserve for China use and then there were the divisions that were committed to the New Guinea campaign, so the three survivors of the crash faced, even at this late stage of the war, the odds against the survival of three severely injured military personnel on a sightseeing flight were little or none.

It took the bravery of a U. S. paratrooper unit, who planned and executed the rescue of the survivors of the " Shangri - La " flight, to ensure that they were rescued to tell their tale.

That the tale was told by Zuckoff is also a bonus. Zuckoff is known for the thoroughness of his research and his ability to tell a tale from that research. He humanized the characters and gave this story the punch it needed to make it an Amazon Book of the Month selection, at the very least.

Perhaps because Zuckoff has the ability to make his characters step off the page and into your mind ' s eye, the " Shangri - La " flight assumes its place among the many great, historic rescue missions of the World War. The real heroes, here, though, are the paratroopers, all volunteers, who went in and pulled out the survivors and the others who didn ' t make it.

This is a great summertime read whether you are reading it on your Kindle or in hardback because it will keep you turning the pages right until the end. Not many historians are also storytellers, too, but Zuckoff is the lucky combination of the two and the reader is the beneficiary.

Unbroken A World War Ii Story Of Survival, Resilience, And Redemption

It should have been a " milk tear, " now the military put it at the time locus a bomber was to fly a search traverse and if it failed in that search the bomber gamy back to base.

It was to have been due to simple in that that for Louie Zamperini. He was fit into his youth when he realized that he was rapidly on his feet, through in Olympics rapidly. He performed in the twin Olympics station Jesse Owens put scuttle to the rumors that Germans were the " most perfect relay " of people on the planet because African - American Owens beat the vaunted German Olympic bunch four times on alley and field.

Zamperini ' s expert was on the alley stage he went on to work as part of the U. S. wrecking crew that showed the world just how " pure " and " strong " the supposed " Aryan superman " was. German athletes were simply athletes who could perform better than most. However, they certainly weren ' t supermen, as Hitler would have had the world believe.

Indeed, Zamperini was on the way to becoming the first runner to break the four - minute mile when a small ruckus intervened. It was World War II and Zamperini, being a patriot, joined the Army Air Corps and became a bombardier. His first action says Laura Hillenbrand, best - selling author and biographer of the bandy - legged colt named Seabiscuit, as well as Zamperini ' s biographer resulted in a bomber whose crew was pretty much shot to pieces with wounds all over and more than 600 bullet holes in the fuselage.

Zamperini was based in Oahu in the Hawaiian chain and spent 1942 and 43 flying special missions. It was on one of those missions that his bomber was shot down and forced to ditch. The next 47 harrowing days would have been a tale in themselves as the small yellow life raft was constantly circled by sharks, some of which even tried climbing aboard the life raft to drag their victims out.

They not only survived that fish tale, but also a strafing run by a Japanese warplane and a typhoon whose 40 - foot seas tossed them around like a cork.

Thinking the worst was behind them, the airmen saw an island in the distance and, using the last of their strength, pulled on the life raft ' s oars for it, only to find, only to find the Japanese waiting there in ambush. That was the beginning of Louie Zamperini ' s problems as he was put in a unit controlled by a wanton sadist, who enjoyed inflicting slow pain on his charges.

The one thing you can see about Louie is that he never gave up. It was a hellish three years in captivity, but he did make it and on his arrival home, he married and then began to fight his demons again, this time by himself.

No one knew what PTSD ( post traumatic stress disease ) was and no one knew how to cure it. It took some serious consequences for Louie and his wife Cynthia before they began to work on his problem and bring him back from the limb he was on.

Hillenbrand ' s biography of Louie Zamperini brings every part of the years before the war, his years as a flight hero and then as a heroic POW. It did take her eight years to get all of the information and put it into order and then work her literary magic. That ' s the beauty of Hillenbrand ' s work; it seems effortless when you read it that is the mark of a good writer. The more seamless the writing, the better the writer and Hillenbrand has even bettered herself in the work on Zamperini. After Seabiscuit, one wondered if there was more than just one great book in the writer and with this book about Louis Zamperini, Hillenbrand has earned the title great.