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Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series
Cold Sun: The Search for World War II Airmen Lost in a Tibetan Glacier
In January 1944, a US Army Air Corps transport, en route to its home base in India, crashed into a snowfield in Tibet, killing all crew members. Because of the remote location and fierce winter weather, the aircraft was covered by heavy snowfall. The snowfield glaciated, completely hiding the aircraft until its accidental discovery by a Tibetan hunter in 1993. A nearby Chinese army garrison launched an immediate reconnaissance into the crash site and brought out remnants of the airplane and remains of the crew. They then notified the American Embassy in Beijing. Then-Colonel William H. Jordan, commander of the US Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, was assigned to investigate the crash site and to recover, identify, and repatriate the remains of the fallen US servicemen. Cold The Search for World War II Airmen Lost in a Tibetan Glacier is Jordan’s recounting of the events surrounding the recovery, including the final, solemn duty of officially informing the lost crewmen’s family members—by this time in middle age or older—of the fate of their loved ones. He weaves the mission of the aircraft and crew’s fate through the prism of America’s history of identifying and recovering their fallen warriors, the efforts over the years, and technological leaps needed to finally accomplish this grim, necessary mission. Inspiring and informative, based in the personal reflections of Jordan and the others involved , Cold Sun tells the gripping story of a tragic loss, a harrowing recovery effort, and the human efforts involved.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published February 14, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 14, 2023
A thrilling, globe-trotting and decades-spanning adventure story, written by my favorite library patron--the most colorful storyteller and probably the most interesting individual I've ever met.
September 10, 2023
Colonel William Jordan (U.S. Army, retired) has written a book - Cold Sun: The Search for World War II Airmen Lost in a Tibetan Glacier (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2023) - that begins by outlining the long evolution of the “large slice” of the U.S. Government apparatus responsible for accounting for U.S. Missing in Action throughout American history.
His book talks about how policies and strategies that informed fundamental U.S. policy concerning defense and security in that long stretch of history were shaped and evolved. He describes how the military implemented the effort to account for American missing in action, and he discusses the partnership with non-governmental organizations, alliances of families of missing U.S. personnel, and veterans’ organizations. He looks closely at how the effort to account for American missing in action from World War II to the conflict in Iraq and later engagements including the Global War on Terror.
Colonel Jordan’s book delivers a significant strand of this story from the perspective of the uniformed personnel deployed to theatres of operation to implement the commitment to search for answers on behalf of the families, the nation, that sent its service personnel to the far reaches of the earth to serve and protect American interests. He deftly sets out to unwind the way global defense and security issues, U.S. policy, politics, service equities, shifting public opinion entwined in a manner that shaped the history of efforts to account for MIAs and POWs from the American Civil War through to 20th century armed conflicts.
All of that provides the basis and background for the story of the World War II airmen lost in a Tibetan glacier, and the long post-war effort that emerged after a Tibetan citizen stumbled across the crash site in a melting glacial field in the early 1990s. To tell the story of that air loss, and the recovery effort that ultimately identified the remains of the crew and returned their remains to their families for the honors they deserved, Colonel Jordan describes the mission of crews that flew cargo over the Hump, the essence of pilot training in the 1940s, the way flight crews came together and jelled, the mechanics of pushing big planes over tough flight paths made tougher by conditions in turbulent flight paths, and the constant threat from Japanese warplanes seeking to interrupt Allied plans for servicing troops on the ground in China. He traces the emergence of the American air war capability in Asia, focusing on the various force developments – including the Flying Tigers, the American Volunteers Group, and the Chinese National Aviation Corporation, as well as Roosevelt’s Special Air Unit, and McArthur’s Southwest Pacific Command, for which Fulton Lanier flew.
The various pivots, jumps across decades, sliding from one end of the story to another, can seem jarring, but the fact of the matter is this: each segue from one aspect of history to another, from one clump of historic moments to another piece of the story - and then back again to the narrative about the search for the World War II aircrew in Tibet - zeros in on the world that the air crew saw, the context (their “situational awareness”) that informed them as they prepared to fly over the Hump, the things they had on their minds before their plane augured its way into a glacier - and sat there for decades.
Once Colonel Jordan turns to the story of the effort to locate, identify, and prepare for the repatriation of the remains of the crew of the World War II U.S. Army Air Force transport from its long resting place in Tibet, his penchant as a storyteller emerges in force. He strings together recollected dialogue with colleagues in preparation for the mission; images of moments in his journey to China with his three-person team; vivid descriptions of his first experience on the ground in Lhasa; and passing references to things that made this visit unique – Tibetan barley beer, oxygen bottles in preparation for normal CILHI business in the thin atmosphere of rugged, high altitude Tibetan countryside, the Dalai Lama’s palace, and an incongruous Holiday Inn that provided their first night’s refugee in Lhasa.
Colonel Jordan provides a deeply detailed account of the 1994 mission he led to locate the remains of the missing aircrew in Tibet. He escorts the reader through the long, harrowing, brutally cold and threatening trek to the crash site, describing the treacherous snowbound and ice encrusted rocky paths, the narrow mountain ledges, and the glacial cervices that took them to the zone where the remains of the crew, and the remains of their aircraft, were entombed for nearly five decades. His recollections of the cooperation between Chinese government officials, Chinese People’s Liberation Army escorts, Tibetan personnel and his U.S. team - along with a U.S. Embassy-Beijing official and the Defense Attaché – underscores the professionalism, the dedication, and the humanity of those who participated in that mission.
In the late 1960s, and the early 1970s, Colonel Jordan served the U.S. Army during two tours in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta as a paramilitary force advisor.
From 1987 to 1989 he was with the Joint Casualty Resolution Center in Hawaii.
From 1990 to 1993 he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), first in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (OASD/ISA/AP), and then in the Pentagon’s Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Office (DPMO) responsible for managing the implementation of POW/MIA policies.
From 1993 until his retirement in 1997, he was Commander of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.
In short, Colonel Jordan wrote this book in a way that relied on the gift of a truly observant soldier who knows how to appraise a landscape and describe the geographic realities in a picture-perfect manner.
His book talks about how policies and strategies that informed fundamental U.S. policy concerning defense and security in that long stretch of history were shaped and evolved. He describes how the military implemented the effort to account for American missing in action, and he discusses the partnership with non-governmental organizations, alliances of families of missing U.S. personnel, and veterans’ organizations. He looks closely at how the effort to account for American missing in action from World War II to the conflict in Iraq and later engagements including the Global War on Terror.
Colonel Jordan’s book delivers a significant strand of this story from the perspective of the uniformed personnel deployed to theatres of operation to implement the commitment to search for answers on behalf of the families, the nation, that sent its service personnel to the far reaches of the earth to serve and protect American interests. He deftly sets out to unwind the way global defense and security issues, U.S. policy, politics, service equities, shifting public opinion entwined in a manner that shaped the history of efforts to account for MIAs and POWs from the American Civil War through to 20th century armed conflicts.
All of that provides the basis and background for the story of the World War II airmen lost in a Tibetan glacier, and the long post-war effort that emerged after a Tibetan citizen stumbled across the crash site in a melting glacial field in the early 1990s. To tell the story of that air loss, and the recovery effort that ultimately identified the remains of the crew and returned their remains to their families for the honors they deserved, Colonel Jordan describes the mission of crews that flew cargo over the Hump, the essence of pilot training in the 1940s, the way flight crews came together and jelled, the mechanics of pushing big planes over tough flight paths made tougher by conditions in turbulent flight paths, and the constant threat from Japanese warplanes seeking to interrupt Allied plans for servicing troops on the ground in China. He traces the emergence of the American air war capability in Asia, focusing on the various force developments – including the Flying Tigers, the American Volunteers Group, and the Chinese National Aviation Corporation, as well as Roosevelt’s Special Air Unit, and McArthur’s Southwest Pacific Command, for which Fulton Lanier flew.
The various pivots, jumps across decades, sliding from one end of the story to another, can seem jarring, but the fact of the matter is this: each segue from one aspect of history to another, from one clump of historic moments to another piece of the story - and then back again to the narrative about the search for the World War II aircrew in Tibet - zeros in on the world that the air crew saw, the context (their “situational awareness”) that informed them as they prepared to fly over the Hump, the things they had on their minds before their plane augured its way into a glacier - and sat there for decades.
Once Colonel Jordan turns to the story of the effort to locate, identify, and prepare for the repatriation of the remains of the crew of the World War II U.S. Army Air Force transport from its long resting place in Tibet, his penchant as a storyteller emerges in force. He strings together recollected dialogue with colleagues in preparation for the mission; images of moments in his journey to China with his three-person team; vivid descriptions of his first experience on the ground in Lhasa; and passing references to things that made this visit unique – Tibetan barley beer, oxygen bottles in preparation for normal CILHI business in the thin atmosphere of rugged, high altitude Tibetan countryside, the Dalai Lama’s palace, and an incongruous Holiday Inn that provided their first night’s refugee in Lhasa.
Colonel Jordan provides a deeply detailed account of the 1994 mission he led to locate the remains of the missing aircrew in Tibet. He escorts the reader through the long, harrowing, brutally cold and threatening trek to the crash site, describing the treacherous snowbound and ice encrusted rocky paths, the narrow mountain ledges, and the glacial cervices that took them to the zone where the remains of the crew, and the remains of their aircraft, were entombed for nearly five decades. His recollections of the cooperation between Chinese government officials, Chinese People’s Liberation Army escorts, Tibetan personnel and his U.S. team - along with a U.S. Embassy-Beijing official and the Defense Attaché – underscores the professionalism, the dedication, and the humanity of those who participated in that mission.
In the late 1960s, and the early 1970s, Colonel Jordan served the U.S. Army during two tours in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta as a paramilitary force advisor.
From 1987 to 1989 he was with the Joint Casualty Resolution Center in Hawaii.
From 1990 to 1993 he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), first in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (OASD/ISA/AP), and then in the Pentagon’s Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Office (DPMO) responsible for managing the implementation of POW/MIA policies.
From 1993 until his retirement in 1997, he was Commander of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.
In short, Colonel Jordan wrote this book in a way that relied on the gift of a truly observant soldier who knows how to appraise a landscape and describe the geographic realities in a picture-perfect manner.
May 30, 2023
Colonel Bill Jordan spent nearly half of his long Army career engaged in finding and repatriating the remains of U.S. servicemen from conflicts around the world. Cold Sun details one of the most challenging recoveries, in a glacier field in Tibet, recovering remains of 3 airmen lost when their C-87 cargo aircraft was lost on a mission "flying the Hump" in 1944. The book goes far beyond this exciting mission and gives the reader a deep understanding of how our government has approached the issue of repatriation over the decades. Not a text book, but a fascinating, factual, and very readable account of the process including many of Col. Jordan's experiences in nearly every theater where America has fought a war. As an "Area Specialist", and Asian linquist, he understands and relates details of the cultures he dealt with in the process. As commander of the "Central Identification Lab, Hawaii", he was hands on in researching, finding, and identifying the remains of lost military members, some missing for decades. Cold Sun is a great read and a real "eye opener" for anyone interested in the history of our missing in action and bringing them home.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews