Chapters 4-5 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 4. Gremlin Special. Elsmore's unit formed a Shangri-La society in which they created mock certificates that they would give to people who flew over the valley with them. Reporters became enamored with Elsmore and his valley, often interviewing him. Elsmore would make amazing claims about the valley, including telling one reporter of headhunters in the valley. Elsmore also claimed the natives in the valley were exceptionally tall and beautiful and that they raised exceptionally large pigs.

On May 13, 1945, Prossen spread the word among his subordinates in the maintenance division of Fee-Ask that he would be taking a joyride over Shangri-La, a trip he called a navigational training mission in his official logs. They would be flying in a C-47, one that Prossen dubbed the Gremlin Special based on a children's story by Roald Dahl.

After the WACs, Colonel Prossen...