Creature record / 1942
Early 1942. A small party of escaped prisoners is nearing the end of a crossing of the Himalayas. In a misty, snow-covered valley, on a flattish shelf, two figures are moving. They are enormous. They walk on their hind legs. The men stop and watch. For a solid two hours. Sławomir Rawicz, a Polish cavalry lieutenant, later estimated them at not much less than eight feet tall. His account appeared in The Long Walk in 1956 and became one of the best known yeti encounters ever told. It also became one of the most disputed. In 2006, Soviet records suggested Rawicz never made the walk at all.
Sławomir Rawicz was born in Pinsk on 1 September 1915. He was a Polish cavalry lieutenant and a prisoner of the Gulag. By his book's account, he escaped in April 1941 with six other men. They crossed the Gobi and then the Himalayas. Four reached India. The story appeared in 1956 as The Long Walk, written by Ronald Downing, a Daily Mail journalist, from interviews with Rawicz.