Lost in Shangri-la

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  49 “flat on the deck”: Hastings, SLD, part 3.

  49 “This is going to be darn close”: McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 1.

  50 The cabin crumpled forward: This account of the crash is taken from the sworn MACR statements of John McCollom and Margaret Hastings, as well as photographs of the wreckage provided to the author by Eugene M. Hoops. At the end of World War II, Hoops was part of an American military unit sent from the Philippines to New Guinea to clean up the base at Hollandia and to destroy remaining files. Upon opening a metal file drawer, he discovered a set of photographs from the May 13, 1945, crash and its aftermath. Despite orders to destroy the material, Hoops believed the photos might be significant and decided to preserve them for posterity.

  50 turning somersaults as he fell: McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 1.

  50 momentarily blacked out: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  50 flattened down like a stepped-on tin can: Ibid.

  51 “all by myself on a Sunday afternoon”: Ibid.

  51 spoiled by a plane crash: Hastings, SLD, part 3. She writes that she was “indignant because this thing had happened to me!”

  51 thick arms around her: Ibid.

  52 “My God! Hastings!”: Ibid.

  52 McCollom doubted it would explode: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  52 “Give me your hand!”: Hastings, SLD, part 3.

  52 Her hair still crackled with burning embers: McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 2.

  53 a bloody . . . gash on the right side of Decker’s forehead: Decker details his injuries in his sworn statement, MACR, p. 2. See also Hastings, SLD, part 4; McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 2.

  53 “My God, Decker, where did you come from?”: Hastings, SLD, part 4.

  53 his deliverance into the jungle: Decker, sworn statement, MACR, p. 1.

  53 catapulted through the cockpit and out through the windshield: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  53 “Helluva way to spend your birthday”: Ibid.

  53 “Hastings, can’t you do something for these girls?”: Hastings, SLD, part 4.

  54 seared off all her clothes: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  54 “Let’s sing”: Hastings, SLD, part 4.

  54 only superficial burns: Ibid.

  54 McCollom invited him to join in the fun: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  54 tangled in the roots of a tree: McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 2.

  55 They left Good’s body where it fell: Photograph of the wreckage, courtesy of Eugene M. Hoops.

  56 wedding ring with a white inlay: Lt. Col. Donald Wardle, chief of the Army Disposition Branch, Memorial Division, to Mrs. Cecelia A. McCollom, May 13, 1959. See also letter from Lt. Col. Donald L. Wardle to Louis Landau, father of Private Mary Landau, May 1, 1959, about the recovery of remains and personal items from the crash site. Contained in Mary Landau’s IDPF, provided by the U.S. Army under a Freedom of Information Act request.

  6: CHARMS

  58 “surrounded by fire if we don’t”: Hastings, SLD, part 4.

  58 “You’re all right”: Ibid.

  59 “Everything in the jungle had tentacles”: Ibid., part 6.

  60 pulled off her khaki shirt: Ibid., part 4.

  60 arms draped over his shoulders: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  60 still dangled from her wrist: Eleanor Hanna’s IDPF notes that the bracelet was found in the grave she shared with Laura Besley, which means it remained in her possession after the crash. She had no clothes, and therefore no pockets, so it stands to reason the bracelet remained on her wrist.

  60 a broken rib: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  61 help McCollom with Eleanor Hanna: Ibid.; see also sworn statements in MACR of Decker, p. 1, and McCollom, p. 2.

  61 compounding their misery: Hastings, SLD, part 4. She writes: “Now the daily and eternal rain of New Guinea began to fall. Soaked clothing was added to our miseries.”

  61 .45-caliber pistol: McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 2.

  61 Cracker Jack–size boxes of K-rations: Jerold E. Brown, Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Army (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001), p. 270.

  61 burn until the middle of the next day: McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 3.

  62 no one would have survived: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  62 couldn’t find any flares: The survivors gave separate accounts of the contents of the life rafts. Margaret Hastings, in SLD, part 4, said the kit contained flares, but in his sworn statement, MACR, John McCollom states: “I looked all over the life raft equipment, but I never could find any flares.” He later writes about trying to use Margaret’s mirror to signal planes, adding veracity to his account.

  63 “Let’s sing”: Hastings, SLD, part 4.

  63 the plane was still aflame: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  63 might be lightning: Imparato, Rescue from Shangri-La, p. 184.

  63 hike all 150-plus miles: Sergeant Ozzie St. George, “Hidden Valley,” Yank: The Army Weekly, Far East ed., Aug. 10, 1945.

  63 yaps and barks of wild dogs: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  63 “Eleanor’s dead”: Margaret Hastings describes finding Eleanor Hanna dead in SLD, part 4, while in his sworn statement, MACR, John McCollom says only, “I guess that Private Hanna died about 8 o’clock that night,” referring to the previous night.

  64 “I can’t stop shaking”: Hastings, SLD, part 5.

  64 seventeen cans of water: Ibid. McCollom’s MACR statement mentions the cots, but the more complete inventory is in Margaret’s diary.

  64 black electrical tape and a pair of pliers: Decker, sworn statement, MACR, p. 1.

  64 burned feet covered by cotton bandages: Hastings, SLD, part 5.

  65 a five-pointed white star: Photos of the downed C-47, taken shortly after the crash, provided by Dona Cruse.

  65 impossible to see except from a short distance: Photograph of the wreckage, courtesy of Eugene M. Hoops.

  65 between the plane and ground controllers: MACR, p. 1.

  66 worked it furiously to flash snatches of sunlight: McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 3. See also Hastings, SLD, part 5, and John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  66 “Don’t worry”: John McCollom, unaired interview with Robert Gardner, Seattle, May 13, 1998.

  66 at peace with her mother’s death: Hastings, SLD, part 5.

  66 Margaret’s middle name: Callahan, interview.

  66 In a school essay: Hastings, “Tribute to Mother,” TCHS.

  67 hugging tightly to keep from falling off: Hastings, SLD, part 5.

  67 “Everyone else is dead and we’re very lonely, aren’t we?”: Ibid.

  67 “Laura has died!”: Hastings, SLD, part 5.

  67 “Don’t be a dope, Hastings”: Ibid.

  68 “ ‘Now the shoes belong to me’ ”: Ibid.

  69 hated the nickname: Hastings, SLD, part 15.

  70 lit a cigarette and handed it to her: Ibid., part 5.

  70 “No night will ever again be as long”: Ibid.

  7: TARZAN

  71 McCollom climbed a tree: In his MACR statement, p. 3, McCollom says he saw the clearing from the tail of the plane. But in his October 1997 interview with Robert Gardner, McCollom explained that he had to climb a tree to see the clearing.

  71 a course they could follow: McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 3. See also John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  71 an officer wrote back: Susan Sheehan, A Missing Plane: The Dramatic Tragedy and Triumph of a Lost and Forgotten World War II Bomber (New York: Berkeley Books, 1986), p. 210.

  72 More than six hundred American planes: Justin Taylan, interview by author, October 2, 2009. Taylan is an authority on World War II plane crashes and director of Pacific Wrecks Web site.

  72 more missing airplanes than any country on earth: Sheehan, Missing Plane, p. 9. Sheehan focused her work on the eastern half of the
island, but in the estimation of Taylan, this was true for all of New Guinea.

  72 Flying Dutchman: This account of the November 10, 1942, crash and cargo door diary is based on Clarinbould, Forgotten Fifth, p. 39. See also “Agony of the Flying Dutchman,” at www.aerothentic.com/historical/Unusual_Stories/C47FlyingDutchman.htm (retrieved August 23 and September 14, 2009), and “C-47A Flying Dutchman,” at www.pacificwrecks.com (retrieved August 23, 2009).

  73 “so light that he ‘felt like a baby’ ”: “Agony of the Flying Dutchman.”

  74 two tins of water and a few cellophane-wrapped Charms: Hastings, SLD, part 5. Margaret Hastings’s account is the primary source of the trio of survivors’ journey through the jungle to the clearing. McCollom corroborated significant parts and added important details in his October 1997 interview with Robert Gardner, and also in newspaper interviews he gave over the years.

  75 Later, writing in her diary: Ibid.

  76 “Let’s go”: Ibid.

  76 crawling on their hands and knees: Jack Jones, “Survivor Recalls Crash, 47 Days in Wild Jungle,” Dayton Daily Camera, June 10, 1959.

  76 “three-inch ‘feather’ bob”: Hastings, SLD, part 5.

  76 never complained: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  77 “It is foolish to think that we could have cut our way out”: Hastings, SLD, part 6.

  77 intended to fill their stomachs: Ibid.

  78 returned with a new idea: Ibid.

  78 “understudy Johnny Weissmuller”: Ibid.

  78 point of pride with her: Ibid.

  79 “the old mother hen instinct”: Remarks of Colonel Jerry Felmley at John McCollom’s retirement dinner, September 23, 1980, Wright Patterson Air Force Base Officers’ Club. Felmley interviewed Decker for the occasion.

  79 a fresh human footprint: John McCollom, interview, October 1997.

  79 strange barking sounds: St. George, “Rescue from Shangri-La,” p. 6.

  8: GENTLEMAN EXPLORER

  80 never much of a traditional student: (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), p. 2.

  80 brusque manner: Roger A. Morse, Richard Archbold and the Archbold Biological Station Ibid., p. 61.

  81 “Why don’t you collect mammals?”: Ibid., p. 4.

  81 learned from his many mistakes: Ibid., p. 4. Archbold’s autobiographical notes indicate that, in Morse’s words, he “botched the job.”

  81 his grandfather had been a major benefactor: Ibid., p. 9.

  81 put his inheritance to work: Ibid., pp. 11–14.

  82 “a comprehensive biological survey of the island”: Richard Archbold, A. L. Rand, and L. J. Brass, “Results of the Archbold Expeditions, No. 41,” Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 79, art. 3 (June 26, 1942): 201.

  82 frustrated by the logistical challenges: Morse, Richard Archbold, p. 15.

  82 largest privately owned airplane in the world: Ibid., p. 23. The plane is sometimes called the Guba II, because it was the successor to a similar flying boat that Archbold sold to the Soviet Union, with U.S. permission, to help the Russians search for a plane that crashed while trying to fly over the North Pole. Archbold called the second plane simply the Guba in his accounts in the New York Times and elsewhere.

  82 a range exceeding four thousand miles: Richard Archbold, “Unknown New Guinea,” National Geographic Magazine 79, no. 3 (March 1941): 315.

  83 nearly two hundred people: Ibid.

  83 “convict carriers”: Morse, Richard Archbold, p. 25. See also Susan Meiselas, Encounters with the Dani: Stories from the Baliem Valley (New York: Steidl/International Center for Photography, 2003), p. 8.

  83 collecting mammals, birds, plants, and insects: A. L. Rand, “The Snow Mountains—New Guinea Group in the American Museum of Natural History,” Scientific Monthly 52, no. 4 (April 1941): 380–82. See also Richard Archbold, “Expedition Finds Rats 3 Feet Long and Kangaroos That Climb Trees,” New York Times, January 1, 1939.

  84 “a pleasant surprise”: Archbold, Rand, and Brass, “Results of the Archbold Expeditions,” p. 211.

  84 called the area a Groote Vallei: L. J. Brass, “Stone Age Agriculture in New Guinea,” Geographical Review 31, no. 4 (October 1941): 556.

  84 stumbling upon Kansas City, Kansas: U.S. Census table, “Population of 100 Largest Urban Places, 1940,” http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab17.txt (retrieved September 26, 2009).

  85 expeditions in 1907, the early 1920s, and 1926: H. Myron Bromley, The Phonology of Lower Grand Valley Dani: A Comparative Structural Study of Skewed Phonemic Patterns (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961), pp. 1–2.

  85 the light-skinned men, who must really be ghosts: Denise O’Brien, “The Economics of Dani Marriage: An Analysis of Marriage Payments in a Highland New Guinea Society,” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, pp. 7–8.

  86 “the last time in the history of our planet”: Flannery, Throwim Way Leg, p. 4.

  86 “Forestation is so heavy”: Editor’s note attached to Archbold, “Unknown New Guinea,” p. 318.

  86 rough weather prevented him from changing course: Brass, “Stone Age Agriculture,” p. 556.

  86 L. J. Brass, described what they saw: Ibid., p. 557.

  87 farm country . . . central Europe: Archbold, “Unknown New Guinea,” p. 316.

  87 “One was evidently a man of some importance”: Ibid., p. 321.

  88 started their treks at opposite ends of the valley: Ibid., p. 321.

  88 the natives practiced cannibalism: Archbold, Rand, and Brass, “Results of the Archbold Expeditions,” p. 253.

  88 discourage the explorers from traveling to the next village: Archbold, “Unknown New Guinea,” p. 324.

  88 tribesmen “in large numbers”: Meiselas, Encounters with the Dani, p. 12. The remainder of the Van Arcken reports from August 9 and 10, 1938, also come from Meiselas, Encounters with the Dani, pp. 12–15. In her translation, she uses “Papuan” rather than “native.”

  89 “Here the natives seemed to take our party for granted”: Archbold, “Unknown New Guinea,” p. 336.

  90 the most awful moment: The details of this incident were explored vividly by Susan Meiselas in her insightful book Encounters with the Dani. Meiselas reprints original copies of Van Arcken’s patrol reports and the map he drew of the valley, including his obfuscating label showing the location where “one Papuan died due to a lance attack.” Meiselas declares, “The colonial government forbade Archbold from discussing the August 10 shooting in exchange for Archbold’s continued access to the region.” Credibility for that claim is enhanced knowledge that colonial rule was already under challenge, as well as by a brief item in the New York Times on March 8, 1940, reporting that Archbold had been appointed “Officer of the Order of Orange Nassau” by Dutch Queen Wilhelmina.

  90 guaranteed that the significance would be overlooked: Archbold, Rand, and Brass, “Results of the Archbold Expeditions.” Roughly six of the report’s ninety-one pages are devoted to Teerink’s and Van Arcken’s journeys, based on their diaries.

  90 “where more than a show of force was necessary”: Ibid., p. 219.

  90 “one native died due to a lance attack”: Meiselas, Encounters with the Dani, p. 15.

  90 “reception the natives will extend is unpredictable”: Archbold, Rand, and Brass, “Results of the Archbold Expeditions,” p. 205.

  9: GUILT AND GANGRENE

  92 “this aching, miserable night”: Hastings, SLD, part 7.

  92 “a sickening sight”: Ibid.

  92 “evil-smelling, running sores”: Ibid., part 10.

  93 She walked in agony: Ibid., part 7, in which she wrote, “I forced myself to walk back and forth . . . it was agony.”

  93 burns on the left side of her face: Ibid., part 9.

  93 the only one left alive: Pat Pond, “Reunion: Thirty Years After,” Women’s Army Corps Journal 5, no. 5 (October–December 1974): 19.

  94 “as much for myself as for them”: John McCollom to Colonel Edward T. Imparato,
n.d., reprinted in Imparato, Rescue from Shangri-La, p. 160.

  94 walk all the way to the ocean: John McCollom and C. Earl Walter, unaired joint interview with Robert Gardner, Seattle, May 13, 1998. McCollom says, “I never even doubted that even if they didn’t find me, that I was going to make it—if I had to walk to the ocean.”

  94 separated the candies by color: St. George, “Rescue from Shangri-La,” p. 6.

  94 “delicious battery acid”: Hastings, SLD, part 7.

  95 “we’re going to starve to death”: Ibid.

  96 “I doubted him for a moment”: Ibid.

  96 Several hundred U.S. women had already died: Information on the deaths of women in World War II was provided by retired colonel Pat Jernigan, who has done notable work on the history of women in the military, and also by http://www.nooniefortin.com/earlierwars.htm (retrieved October 2, 2009).

  97 six nurses were among twenty-eight crew members killed: Ibid.

  97 “a handful of icicles”: The story of the homemade WAC flag comes from Pat Jernigan and also from Eck, Saga of a Sad Sack, pp. 29–30. See also letter titled “I Am Proud,” by WAC Margaret Durocher, in Margaret Hastings’s correspondence file at TCHS.

  98 calls were made to Allied landing strips: Report of Circumstances Surrounding Flight and Search for C-47 Aircraft Number 41-23952, U.S. Army document, MACR, contained in IDPFs of the crew and passengers who died.

  98 “a forced landing”: Ibid.

  98 twenty-four planes took part: Ibid.

  98 A volunteer crew member: Lutgring, interview, January 5, 2010.

  98 “this is it”: Hastings, SLD, part 7.

  99 flew away without spotting them: John McCollom, sworn statement, MACR, p. 4. In her diary, Margaret Hastings does not record the first plane they saw at the clearing. Decker’s MACR statement is vague, but he seems to agree with McCollom by writing that they reached the clearing around 11:00 a.m. and “we were spotted by a plane that same noon.”

  99 “Get out the tarps!”: Hastings, SLD, part 7.