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Leonard Clark
(1908-1957) |
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Leonard Clark is one of
the “lost stars” of twentieth-century exploration. Never a proponent of big
expeditions and elaborate paraphernalia - he carried his own belongings and
charged ahead be it on foot, on horseback, dug-out canoe or questionable
aircraft.
This trait of self-reliance initially enabled him to perform extraordinary feats
of military intelligence and reconnaissance in difficult and dangerous areas
during the Second World War. Clark, who had attended the University of
California, joined the army and first flew in China behind Japanese lines. With
his intimate knowledge of local affairs, Clark was asked by the American OSS,
forerunner of the CIA, to organize guerrilla activity and espionage in China and
Mongolia.
After attaining the rank of colonel, Clark turned his prodigious energies
towards exploration by leading expeditions in Borneo, Mexico, the Celebes,
Sumatra, China, Tibet, India, Japan, Central America, South America, and Burma.
The dashing adventurer died while on a diamond-mining expedition in Venezuela.
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The Marching Wind
Leonard Clark
ISBN 1590480600
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Leonard Clark was a
lifelong enemy of fear, common sense, and all the other elements that
usually define “normal” people. During The Second World War he headed
the United States espionage system in China. When that global conflict
came to a peaceful conclusion, Clark turned his relentless energy towards
exploring the most dangerous and inaccessible places on the globe. Case in
point was his decision to lead a mounted expedition of Torgut tribesmen
into Tibet!
The official reason for Clark’s decision to “invade” this
mountainous kingdom on horseback in 1949 was his decision to prepare an
impregnable base for General Ma Pa-fang, a violently anti-communist Moslem
general. Yet romantic adventure ran deep in Clark, which helps to explain
why he was journeying through one of the world's least known and most
forbidding regions in the center of Asia. He was also eager to find and
measure a mysterious mountain in the Amne Machin range rumored to be
higher than Mount Everest. The only problem was that the sacred mountain
was guarded by the fearsome Ngolok tribesmen.
“The Marching Wind” is the panoramic story of Clark’s mounted
exploration in the remote and savage heart of Asia, a place where
adventure, danger, and intrigue were the daily backdrop to wild tribesman
and equestrian exploits.
Amply illustrated with Clark’s photographs, as well as maps he drew in
Tibet, this rediscovered classic was originally published soon before the
author’s death from injuries he received while exploring the Amazon
rainforest.
For more details please
visit
Barnes & Noble
or
Amazon.co.uk |
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A Wanderer Till I Die
Leonard Clark
ISBN 1590481402
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The world was
rumbling with discontent in 1934. Fascism was on the march and Japan was
making a military land grab against a weakened Chinese empire. Nobody with
any common sense went wandering around South East Asia alone unless they
were looking for trouble. Which is exactly what young Leonard Clark (1908 –
1957), one of the greatest adventure travel writers of the early 20th
century, thrived on.
Clark’s later
life included leading a mounted group of guerrillas into Tibet and
organizing a spy ring against the Japanese Imperial army, before he
eventually died in a Venezuelan jungle looking for diamonds. But this
some-time aviator, full-time risk-taker, got his start in the jungles and
battle fields of 1930s Asia. And while his later travel accounts are better
known, “A Wanderer Till I Die” is the book that sets the pace for Clark’s
event-filled life.
Though only
twenty-six when the story opens, he’s already armed with a keen eye, a sense
of humour, no regrets and his trusty Colt 45 pistol. Clark delights in
telling his readers how he outsmarts warlords, avoids executioners, gambles
with renegades and hangs out with an up and coming Communist leader named
Mao Tse Tung. In a world with lax passport control, no airlines, and few
rules, the young man from San Francisco floats effortlessly from one
adventure to the next. When he’s not drinking whiskey at the Raffles Hotel
or listening to the “St. Louis Blues” on the phonograph in the jungle, he’s
searching for Malaysian treasure, being captured by Toradja head-hunters,
interrogated by Japanese intelligence officers and lured into shady deals by
European gun-runners.
But he always
comes out smiling, if still broke. For that’s the charm of A Wanderer
Till I Die. Clark takes you on a tour of Asia, the “land of sweet
sadness,” and doesn’t apologise for his views or actions. His lifestyle,
like the world he inhabited, is a thing of the past. But if you crave the
vicarious thrill of hunting tigers with a faulty rifle, or if you’ve ever
fantasized about offering your services as a mercenary pilot to a warlord,
only to discover that the man interviewing you is the wrong general, then
this is the book for you.
Amply illustrated, “A Wanderer
Till I Die” leads you down the road to adventure with a man for whom no
danger was too great to entice him to risk his life again and again.
For more information, please go to
Amazon.co.uk or
Barnes & Noble. |
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