Descent into Chaos : Doomed Expedition to Low's Gully

In early March 1994, five exhausted and starving members of a British Army expedition emerged from Low's Gully, a five-mile-long hell hole falling away from Mount Kinabalu in the jungles of Borneo.

However, the achievement of the five - mostly fit and able young British non-commissioned officers - in being the first to conquer Low's Gully, was overshadowed by the fact that the other five members of the team, two relatively old and senior British officers as the leaders and three young novice Chinese storemen and guards serving under the British military in Hong Kong, were apparently still lost in the gully.

What had gone wrong and why had the group broken the golden rule for such expeditions - never split up?The rescue attempt by Malaysian and British servicemen and local people became a daily feature in the newspapers and on television.

Then the five, seemingly against the odds, were found alive.

Shortly afterwards, one of the officers sold his story to the "Daily Mail".

He publicly blamed the members of the first group to emerge for the debacle and also made an unprecedented attack on the Chinese soldiers.

Yet, in important areas, the findings of the Board of Inquiry into the incident went against the officers, the Board taking the view that, in some respects, the leader's judgment and leadership were flawed.Richard Connaughton's search for the truth behind this story took him around the United Kingdom to Hong Kong and to Sabah, Eastern Malaysia.

The result is a balanced account of what became the notorious descent into Low's Gully.

Richard Connaughton is the author of "Celebration of Victory" and "Shrouded Secrets".