Murcutt, Miriam

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Murcutt, Miriam

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Boulder, CO. E-mail—starksmurcutt@msn.com.

CAREER:

Writer. Previously worked as a marketing executive in the publishing industry, a magazine writer, and editor.

WRITINGS:

(With Richard Starks) Lost in Tibet: The Untold Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive, Lyons Press (Guilford, CT), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer Miriam Murcutt has worked as a marketing executive in the publishing industry, and has also been both an editor and writer for various magazines. In 2004, she ad Richard Starks published the book Lost in Tibet: The Untold Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive. The book is the result of three years of research and traveling by the pair, who have shared a number of travel adventures together, including hiking through the Everest Valley, walking the length of the French Alps, touring the Torres del Paine in Patagonia, and climbing two separate peeks of the Himalayas. For Lost in Tibet, they spent time with pilgrims visiting some of the greatest monasteries in existence in Tibet, and braved harsh winter temperatures and snow in order to cross a plateau in an attempt to trace the steps of the five lost American airmen about whom they wrote the book. When asked for a Q&A for the book's home page what drew them to devote such time and expend such effort on the project, Starks responded: "Because of the story…. it's a thrill-a-minute adventure story about five Americans who are forced to bail out of their plane just seconds before it crashes. They think they're going to land somewhere in India or China, but instead they find themselves stranded high on a mountain." The crash occurred in 1943, when Tibet was almost entirely unknown to Westerners, adding to the difficulties the men faced as strangers in a foreign country. It was also a period of turmoil within the nation, as Tibet struggled to maintain its independence from China, making for a potentially volatile situation.

Over the course of the book, Murcutt and Starks relay the story of Robert Crozier, Harold McCallum, Kenneth Spencer, John Huffman, and William Perram, five Americans who crashed off course in the middle of a mission designed to assist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek in the face of occupation by the Japanese. This meant the Americans were allied with China—against whom Tibet was rebelling—and colored the reception they received. However, despite this, the men were sent to Lhasa and remanded to the hospitality of British botanists George and Betty Sherriff, who were living there. Ultimately, the men were some of the only Americans ever to have set foot inside the walls of the Forbidden City. Murcutt and Starks take care to include not just all the details of the five men's experiences, but also the ins and outs of the political situation, both between the United States and Tibet due to the Chinese connection, and between Tibet and China as well, given that the Chinese invasion happened not long after the events of the book, in 1950. They also include the actions of the other nations with an interest in the situation, including Russia and Great Britain. The airmen themselves faced many of the challenges of the situation without a true understanding of how precariously they were positioned between two nations, mere pawns to the greater strategy, and in some cases their actions—such as accepting liquor from Chinese emissaries they met in Tibet—proved to be inflammatory.

Eventually the airmen began the journey home through India, but that proved to be as dangerous as their initial mission and resulting crash. Murcutt and Starks trace their progress with a mix of tension and humor, particularly with respect to the reactions of the airmen to their experiences and to the Tibetan guides sent with them to ensure that they took the correct route. In many ways, the overall youth (the men ranged from age nineteen to twenty-nine) and inexperience of the airmen shines through much of the story, as Murcutt and Sparks maintain a balance between telling an outright adventure story and relaying an incident that ultimately had a lasting, if minor, affect on the political relationship between the United States and Tibet. Jules Stewart, in a review of the book for Geographical, remarked that the work is "a highly entertaining insight into the culture clash between these five men from rural USA and the Tibetan villagers, who had never before laid eyes on a Westerner." Booklist reviewer Danise Hoover praised Murcutt and Starks's effort, calling it "a fine story of courage and diplomacy." Hoover also went on to point out that the book offers readers "invaluable information on a little-known theater of WWII." A contributor for Kirkus Reviews dubbed the volume "a well-rendered story of WWII action and adventure, one with plenty of twists and operational pointers for future warriors." Writing for Air Power History, Murdock M. Moore noted both the accurate details and the irony of much of the situation, calling Lost in Tibet "a good read, especially the survival aspects—an aircrew having to explain to villagers in sign language that they had parachuted from an airplane. What's an airplane?"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Air Power History, summer, 2006, Murdock M. Moore, review of Lost in Tibet: The Untold Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive, p. 55.

Asian Affairs, March, 2005, Michael Rank, review of Lost in Tibet, p. 92.

Booklist, September 1, 2004, Danise Hoover, review of Lost in Tibet, p. 43.

Geographical, August, 2005, Jules Stewart, review of Lost in Tibet, p. 81.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2004, review of Lost in Tibet, p. 572.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2004, review of Lost in Tibet, p. 34.

World War II, June, 2007, review of Lost in Tibet, p. 75.