Lost in Shangri-la

Chapter 19

“SHOO, SHOO BABY”

THEIR STOMACHS EMPTY and growling, Walter and his team awoke early to a breakfast of hot water and hope. His top priority was receiving a drop of ten-in-one rations. He tried hailing the C-47 supply plane by walkie-talkie as it flew somewhere in the vicinity overhead, even as he worried that his campsite at the edge of the jungle might not be visible from the air. Trekking farther toward the survivors’ campsite would only put them deeper under the canopy. So they stayed put, talked, and waited.

“Finally they are over us and have us spotted,” he wrote in his journal on Friday, May 25, his first upbeat entry in two days. “Rations dropped. Best things I have seen in a long time. Men recovered the rations and I learned that we are two miles by air due west of the wreck.”

Ravenous, Walter stuffed himself. He paid the price when they broke camp: “The first hour was terrible. Too much food.” But eager to reach their destination, they pressed on, slower than usual and taking more frequent breaks. After several hours, they reached the crest of a ridge and began to hike on a downward slope. Walter hoped they were close.

AT THE SURVIVORS’ camp, the radioman in the 311 supply plane passed on the news that the paratroopers were close by: “Earl will get down there pretty soon, and you’ll hear him.”

In late afternoon, Margaret heard what she called “that yapping noise peculiar to the natives.” As the noise grew closer, it was replaced by an unmistakably American sound:

“Shoo, shoo my baby, Shoooo.

Goodbye baby, don’t you cry no more.

Your big tall papa’s off to the seven seas.”

Walter marched buoyantly toward the campsite, swinging his bolo knife to clear the trail and singing the Andrew Sisters’ recent hit, “Shoo, Shoo Baby.”

Writing about the paratroopers’ arrival in her diary, Margaret’s first impression of Walter bordered on starry-eyed: “He looked like a giant as he came down the trail at the head of his Filipino boys and the ubiquitous escort of natives. The captain’s arrival was like a strong, fresh breeze. He was not only a capable and efficient officer, but a one-man floor show. Two minutes after he arrived the camp started jumpin’.”

Doc and Rammy rushed from their tents to greet their comrades. Walter was happy to see the survivors, but he was overjoyed to see the two medics. “I knew they were all right,” he said, “but I wanted to see them and congratulate them again, first of all on the jump, and secondly on the good job they had done. And just to get back together with them. The rest of the men felt the same way. We were all quite concerned about them.”

Margaret watched as Walter and the medics exchanged embraces, handshakes, and hearty pats on the back. She wrote in her diary: “His men worshipped Walter, and the affection was patently mutual.”

Walter, meanwhile, couldn’t help but notice that Margaret, despite her jungle haircut, her weight loss, and her injuries, “was a pretty good-looking gal.”

WITH THE SURVIVORS’ camp now expanded to ten men and one woman, Walter set his troops to work putting up more pup tents as sleeping quarters. They also erected a large pyramidal tent with a peaked roof and walls about sixteen feet long on each side, to serve as a combination headquarters, mess hall, and jungle social club for the two officers, Walter and McCollom; one WAC; and eight enlisted men.

Soon an American flag waved from a makeshift flagpole outside the big tent, making the camp a quasi-official U.S. Army base. In one journal entry, Walter called it “The Lost Outpost of Shangri-La.” He wrote: “The Stars and Stripes now fly over the Oranje Mountain Range. Being the first white people here, we can claim this territory for Uncle Sam, but doubt if the Aussies would appreciate it.”

After a bath in the creek and dinner served up by McCollom, Walter pulled out a deck of cards and organized the first of what became daily games of poker and gin rummy. Margaret was no poker player, preferring bridge, but she kept herself amused as they “won and lost thousands of dollars” in every session. Lacking chips, they bet with Raleigh and Chelsea brand cigarettes, along with wooden matches to light their winnings. She modeled her gambling style on the freewheeling ways of Sergeant Caoili, who’d bluff like mad on a pair of threes. Caoili was relentless in everything he did; when he wasn’t winning and losing matchsticks, he earned the nicknames “Superman” and “Iron Man” for his powerful build and tireless work habits.

The American flag waving over “The Lost Outpost of Shangri-La.” (Photo courtesy of B. B. McCollom.)

Sitting around their improvised card table in the big tent, Walter smoldered at Margaret’s card-playing style. He stewed over what he viewed as her stubborn refusal to learn the rules of the game.

“There ought to be a law against women playing poker!” he shouted.

Neither was he impressed when she invented a pokerlike game she called “Deuces wild, roll your own, and fiery cross.” Incomprehensible to everyone but Margaret, the game involved a muddle of wild cards and an opportunity for players to form the best possible hand using fifteen cards.

Walter declared: “Maggie, you don’t know how to play cards.”

“I do, too!” Margaret answered.

“Well, you probably know how to play bridge, but I don’t know how to play bridge. This is poker we’re playing, and there are a pair, three of a kind, a straight, a flush, and so on.”

In Walter’s view, Margaret could never remember the ranking of the best-to-worst poker hands. “We’d always get into an argument because I knew what I was drawing to, and she didn’t,” he said.

Margaret thought Walter’s anger could be traced to another source: his machismo. “The captain played just as earnestly as if it were for real money,” she told her diary, “and when I would bluff him out of a big pot he would be livid.”

After cards, the paratroopers, the survivors, and the some of the natives passed the evening hours by entertaining each other. Margaret, feeling better by the day, sang WAC tunes, and several paratroopers showed off their vocal stylings with Visayan love songs from the Philippines. The natives played the only musical instrument the survivors and paratroopers ever heard in Shangri-La: a simple mouth harp whose tune sounded to the outsiders like a monotonic funeral dirge. But there was only one star: Camp Shangri-La’s commanding officer.

“Walter was a personality kid,” Margaret wrote. “Often, after supper, he would put on a one-man floor show. He could give a wonderful imitation of a nightclub singer or a radio crooner. Then he would truck and shag, singing popular songs while not only we, but the natives, sat around entranced. ‘Shoo, Shoo Baby’ was always his favorite. Walter was wonderful for morale. No one could be downhearted for long in his presence.”

As Margaret’s health returned, so did her appetites. Soon Walter got the strong impression that Margaret found him sexually attractive. He picked up signals that she expected him to make a pass at her, and she looked for opportunities to spend time with him. Walter may have been tempted, but he insisted that he never made a move. Walter took seriously his marriage and his role as the mission’s commanding officer. He never explained his behavior to Margaret, but she apparently got the message.

When Walter didn’t rise to the bait, he said, Margaret turned her attentions to one of his men, Sergeant Don Ruiz.

Walter was no prude—only a few years earlier, he’d cut high school classes to visit L.A. strip clubs—and he didn’t care what enlisted personnel did in private, on their own time. But he felt responsible for everything that happened on his watch in Shangri-La. He knew there was no birth control in the valley, and he didn’t want unexpected consequences.

Not certain how best to proceed, Walter approached McCollom for help.

“I wanted him to tell Maggie to leave the men alone,” Walter said. “I had one noncom that was the best-looking guy in the unit, Don Ruiz. He was one of my best noncoms, and also one of the handsomest men around. Maggie sort of had her eyes on him and tried to seduce him a couple of times.”

Torn between interest in Margaret and respect for his captain, Ruiz found a private moment to speak with Walter.

“Captain,” he said, “what am I going to do?”

“Just leave her the hell alone,” Walter answered. “Walk away, just walk away.”

A flirtation between the two continued, but as far as Walter knew, it remained unconsummated.

After speaking with Ruiz, Walter gathered his troops and laid down the law to the entire squad: “If anybody lays a hand on her, so help me God, you’re busted to private the next minute.”

Walter explained: “I had to remind my men a couple of times that I sure as hell didn’t want a pregnant WAC flying out of there. . . . That would have given me a pretty bad reputation. So I had to be adamant about that.”

THE DAY AFTER arriving at the survivors’ camp, Walter watched Doc and Rammy slice and peel the gangrenous skin from Margaret’s and Decker’s wounds. He took admiring note of the medics’ work in his journal, writing that “both men deserved all the credit in the world.” But one look at the injuries convinced Walter that his hope of a quick return to the base camp in the big valley had been overly optimistic. He wrote in his journal they’d be stuck at the jungle campsite for at least a week, maybe longer. Even then, he thought that he and his men would have to carry Margaret and Decker at least partway through the jungle and down the slippery mountain slope.

That day, just before lunchtime, the supply plane dropped its usual load of provisions, as well as books and magazines to help pass the time. When they gathered the cargo, the paratroopers found supplies for their difficult next task: burial duty. The 311 dropped twenty-one freshly pressed silver dog tags, along with twenty wooden crosses and one wooden Star of David. The military believed that the crash victims included sixteen Protestants, four Catholics, and one Jewish WAC, Sergeant Belle Naimer of the Bronx. Only much later would the military learn that a second Star of David should have been dropped, for Private Mary Landau of Brooklyn.

Aboard the plane that day, helping to toss the funerary supplies out the cargo door, was Sergeant Ruth Coster, whose workload had kept her from flying aboard the Gremlin Special, but whose best friend, Sergeant Helen Kent, had died in the crash. Other than keeping Helen’s memory alive, it was the last thing Ruth could do for her.

On Sunday, May 27, two weeks after the crash, Walter awoke at seven in the morning, ate a hearty breakfast, and set out for the wreck with five sergeants: Bulatao, Caoili, Dongallo, Javonillo, and Ruiz. Following detailed directions from McCollom, they tried to retrace the survivors’ trail in reverse, using the stream to guide them up the mountain. But they became confused about which of its tributaries to follow. The paratroopers left their equipment and the grave markers at an easy-to-find spot and split up—Walter and Ruiz went one way, and the other four men went another. Trekking through the jungle proved impossible, especially since they weren’t sure where they were headed. After several hours, both groups returned to the campsite, exhausted. To make matters worse, Walter had strained his groin on the hike.

The following day, Walter sent Caoili and Javonillo on another search mission for the crash site, but they had no better luck. Walter knew what he needed: someone who’d been there before. Finally, McCollom led a group back up the mountain toward the wreck, navigating by the river and a few landmarks he remembered. McCollom knew they were close when he spotted wispy strands of light-brown hair tangled in vines and shrubs. He recalled how Margaret’s long hair had snagged in the brush when they’d left the crash site for the clearing, and how he’d used his pocketknife to give her a jungle cut. McCollom and the paratroopers followed the trail of Margaret’s hair directly to the burned, broken remains of the Gremlin Special.

As they entered the area where the plane had mowed down trees and carved a hole through the canopy, McCollom hung back. “There it is,” he told the paratroopers, pointing the way. He’d already seen enough. He didn’t need to see the remains of his brother; his commander, Colonel Peter Prossen; and his friends, colleagues, and fellow passengers.

Later that night, McCollom relied on reports from the paratroopers who’d hiked with him to describe the situation to Walter. “Lieutenant Mac’s report on the wreck is very disheartening,” Walter wrote that night in his journal. “Only three bodies are identifiable—Captain Good, Sergeant Besley and Private Hanna. The last two are both WACs. The rest of the bodies are in a cremated jumble. Still not decided on disposition.” Several days later, Walter received his orders via walkie-talkie: return to the crash site with the grave markers and shovels.

They started out just after dawn and reached what was left of the Gremlin Special in late morning. Joining Walter were the five paratroopers who’d accompanied him from the big valley. McCollom wouldn’t join the burial patrol, and Margaret and Decker were too hurt to help. Even with McCollom’s instructions, the jungle was so thick that at one point they came within twenty yards of the Gremlin Special without knowing it.

When the paratroopers reached the wreck, they buried Laura Besley and Eleanor Hanna side by side in an area they called the cemetery. “After that,” Walter wrote in his journal, “we buried Captain Good and made a common grave for the eighteen unidentifiable persons.”

As he recounted the day’s events, the tone of Walter’s journal shifted. He and his men had jumped into the valley for the adventure of a rescue mission. Now they were on grave duty, and the tragic reality hit home:

Those eighteen were all mixed up, and most of the bodies had been completely cremated by the intense heat of the fire. It was the best burial we could give them under the circumstances. All of us had to use gas masks, as the odor was terrific. I don’t mind dead women, but dead women in the nude is something different. Also the bodies were almost a month old. After the burials were completed, I took some camera shots of the wreck and the graves. God only knows how anyone got out of the plane alive. It is without a doubt the most thoroughly destroyed aircraft I have ever seen.”

One of the crosses erected by the burial crew near the wreckage of the Gremlin Special. (Photo courtesy of C. Earl Walter Jr.)

After covering the graves, Walter and his men pounded the crosses and the Star of David into the damp earth, draping each one with a dog tag. Their labors took until late afternoon, and by then the sun was setting, its last rays reflecting off mountain walls. The nightly mist slithered into the jungle.

As Walter and his men worked, circling overhead was a U.S. Army plane with two chaplains. One, Colonel August Gearhard, a Catholic priest from Milwaukee, was a hero in his own right, having received the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor, for bravery in World War I. The other was Lieutenant Colonel Carl Mellberg of Dayton, Ohio, who conducted the Protestant service. One of the chaplains also spoke Jewish prayers for Belle Naimer and, unknowingly, Mary Landau.

“Out of the depth I have cried unto thee, O Lord,” prayed Father Gearhard, as the service was broadcast over the walkie-talkie to the cemetery area and the survivors’ campsite. Chaplain Cornelius Waldo, who’d earlier dropped Bibles and prayer books to the survivors, later told a reporter that the scene “seemed to whisper a peace more living and beautiful than any spot I’ve ever seen.”

Margaret wrote in her diary: “From that plane, over the radio, came the saddest and most impressive funeral service I have ever heard. We sat around the camp radio, silent and very humble as a Catholic, a Protestant and a Jewish chaplain in the plane read burial services for the dead on the mountaintop. We were very humble because we have been saved where so many had perished. Lieutenant McCollom sat with his head bowed, his usual controlled self. But Sergeant Decker’s and my hearts ached for him. On one of those white crosses up that cruel mountain hung the dog tag of his twin brother, Lieutenant Robert E. McCollom, from whom only death could separate him.”

The burial team hiked back toward the campsite, stopping along the way to bathe in the creek. They cleansed themselves, but without heavy-duty soap and hot water, they couldn’t wash the stench of death out of their uniforms. Later, Walter would ask the supply plane for replacements, so they could throw away the clothes they’d worn for the burials. After their baths, the enlisted men had a late lunch, but Walter settled into a contemplative mood and skipped the meal.

That night at the campsite, McCollom kept to himself. Walter, Margaret, and Decker fell into what Walter called “a long discussion on the world at war.” Decker gave up after a while and went to his tent, but Walter and Margaret kept arguing deep into the night about politics and the military. “She seems to have it in for the Army, will not listen to any logical reasoning,” Walter wrote. “Man, but she is really stubborn.”

Still, he respected her. “Margaret was a true blue gal,” Walter said later. “She had a lot of gumption and a lot of guts. It might have been that she was the only woman surrounded by a lot of men, and she had to hold her own. But she would never listen to anyone trying to tell her anything!”

The bickering kept the camp from sleep. Rammy called to them that it was past midnight, and the debate ended. Walter wrote: “Off to bed we went with nothing at all settled.”

THE PEOPLE OF Uwambo watched as the creatures they thought were spirits made repeated trips to the top of the Ogi ridge. The natives, who cremated their dead, didn’t comprehend the burial rites. With no religious symbols of their own, they also didn’t understand the meaning of the crosses and the Star of David.

“When they climbed the mountain,” said Yunggukwe Wandik, “we all thought they wanted to know if they could see their homes from there.”

BY THE TIME the funeral was complete, the U.S. War Department had sent two dozen telegrams to the next-of-kin of the crew and passengers of the Gremlin Special. All but three began with some variation of the standard military death notice: “The Secretary of War deeply regrets to inform you . . .” Upon receipt of those formal condolences, twenty-one hopeful blue-star families became twenty-one grieving gold-star families.

Margaret Nicholson of Medford, Massachusetts, the mother of Major George Nicholson, received condolence letters from three of America’s top generals: Douglas MacArthur, Clements McMullen, and H. H. “Hap” Arnold. Although pilot error might have been suspected, Nicholson’s full role in the crash wasn’t known; even after it emerged that he was alone at the controls, the Army Air Forces never fixed blame for the wreck of the Gremlin Special. Talk of an investigation fizzled, and vague suppositions about sudden downdrafts remained the presumptive cause in the official record.

Hap Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces, described Nicholson to his mother as having died “while he was flying in the service of his Country.” McMullen, Fee-Ask’s commanding general, wrote: “You may well be proud of the important part which your son took in forwarding the mission of this command.” MacArthur wrote: “Your consolation for his loss may be that he died in the service of our country in a just cause which, with Victory, will give freedom from oppression to all peoples.”

For the McCollom family, the official notices highlighted the twins’ permanent separation. A condolence telegram went to the young wife of Robert McCollom. Her in-laws, who were listed as John McCollom’s next-of-kin, received a different letter altogether. Theirs was the embodiment of answered prayers. It echoed the letters received by the parents of Ken Decker in Kelso, Washington, and Margaret Hastings’s widowed father, Patrick Hastings, in Owego, New York.

On May 27, 1945, three long days after he received the initial “missing” telegram, Patrick Hastings opened a letter from the U.S. Army saying that “a corrected report has now been received which indicates that your daughter was injured in a plane crash . . . and that she is safe instead of missing in action as you were previously advised.” The letter promised updates on rescue operations and Margaret’s condition.

A follow-up came twelve days later, in more human terms, from the Hollandia chaplain, Cornelius Waldo: “Notice has reached you by now that your dear daughter Margaret has had a very miraculous escape in a plane crash. Due to the fact that the survivors are in a rather inaccessible spot, it will be some time before she will be back at the base to write you herself. I talked to her on the radio the day we dropped supplies and paratroopers. She is quite all right in spite of her harrowing experience.”

Waldo didn’t mention her burns, her gangrene, or her other wounds, or the fact that the military still didn’t know how to get Margaret, her fellow survivors, and their rescuers back to Hollandia.