Unbroken

It seems strange to think of it now, but when I was born in 1960, WWII had only been over for 15 years. Memories of the war were living things, the soldiers and civilians involved still mostly young. My father was relatively lucky to be assigned to a fast troop transport ship in the Atlantic.  My uncle was in the Army in the Pacific, not such an easy assignment, but they both came out alive.  Compared to others, they were the lucky ones.  Compared to Louis Zamperini, they were on a cake walk.  Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, is the true story of how Zamperini spent the war, and how it changed him forever.

Louis Zamperini was born in 1917 in New York, but his family moved to Torrance, CA in 1919 to help Louis recover from pneumonia.  He was a fearless baby who turned into the neighborhood hell-raiser.  His older brother Pete literally saved him from a lifetime of delinquency when he introduced him to track.  Louis became a star at Torrance High School, where he was known in all the LA newspapers as "The Torrance Tornado".  In fact, he was so good he qualified for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, rooming with Jesse Owens!  After the Olympics he attended USC (FIGHT ON!!!) on a track scholarship, where he would hold the NCAA record for the mile for the next fifteen years.  He was a sure bet to medal in the 1940 Olympics, but then war came.

Louis was trained as a bombardier on the B-24 Liberator, also known as "The Flying Coffin",  and stationed on Oahu.  He and the rest of his crew survived run after bombing run, as those all around them disappeared into the Pacific.  That all changed on May 27, 1943, when their plane went down on a rescue mission.  What follows is an amazing tale of human physical and mental endurance through horrible thirst and near-starvation, shark attacks and typhoons, torture and deprivation in Japanese prison camps.  How Louis survived, conquered his post-war demons and ultimately thrived is the stuff of legend.  And guess what?  He's still alive and kicking at 94!

So, stop what you are doing and read this book.  It is now one of my favorites!

P.S.:  If this story sounds familiar, that is because CBS did a profile about him for the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan.  You can find it on youtube, but read the book first!