Brooke Dolan II
Brooke Dolan II (1908-1945) was an American adventurer and naturalist in the 1930s and 1940s. His father was Brooke Dolan, a wealthy American industrialist in Philadelphia. During World War II, he served as a lieutenant.
Overview
Brooke Dolan II was associated with the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He led two expeditions to China and eastern Tibet in 1931 and 1934 to 1935. The first expedition comprised Ernst Schäfer, a German zoologist, Gordon Bowles, Otto Gneiser, and Hugo Weigold. The second comprised Schäfer and Marion Duncan, an American missionary.
He was married to Emilie Gerhard, who accompanied him for a while on the second trip to China.
In October 1942 he traveled with Ilia Tolstoy to Lhasa as a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and met the young Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, and the Tibetan government. Tolstoy and Dolan are considered to have gone beyond their authority in leading the Tibetan government to believe the United States had given international political recognition to Tibet.
References
- Dolan II, Brooke, Road to the Edge of the World, Frontiers, October 1936, pages 5–9
- Dolan II, Brooke, Road to the Edge of the World, Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia), 1937
- Duncan, Marion, The Yangtze and the Yak, Alexandria Va, 1952
- Hale, Christopher, Himmler’s Crusade, Hoboken NJ: Wiley & Sons, 2003
- Knaus, John Kenneth, Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival, Chapter 1, New York: Public Affairs, 1999