"There was a log running across this little gulley and he walked out on the log and I walked out on the log and we got closer together," McCollom recalls. Rumor had it that the local tribes were cannibals and headhunters, so McCollom was initially cautious as he approached their leader. It was then that they first encountered the residents of the valley. At a press conference after the rescue she quipped, "I'd like a shower and a permanent." Margaret Hastings (right), the lone female survivor, was a media favorite. The flight began as a sightseeing tour on May 13, 1945, when 24 men and women stationed in New Guinea boarded the Gremlin Special to fly over a hidden valley that had been nicknamed "Shangri-La."Ĭpl. His book is the story of one of the few crashes in New Guinea where survivors lived to tell the tale. "New Guinea was sort of a graveyard for planes," Zuckoff explains.
At the time of World War II, much of the island was uncharted - hundreds of planes crashed there, and few were ever found. The story is set against the unforgiving backdrop of New Guinea's high mountains, dense rain forests and thick clouds. Zuckoff tells that epic tale in a new book, Lost in Shangri-La. Several years ago, journalist Mitchell Zuckoff came across an article about a World War II plane crash in New Guinea that had all the elements of an unforgettable story: There was a terrible accident in a harsh landscape, three survivors, a hidden world with a Stone Age existence, and a heroic rescue mission. Army station in Hollandia, New Guinea, shortly after their rescue.
John McCollom were the only three survivors of the Gremlin Special crash.
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