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On July 2, 2014, Louis Zamperini, Olympian and American World War II veteran whose story of capture by the Japanese inspired the book "Unbroken", died at the age of 97. An excerpt from the article:
"Who Was Louis Zamperini?
Louis Zamperini was a World War II veteran and Olympic distance runner. Zamperini competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and was set to compete again in the 1940 games in Tokyo, which were canceled when World War II broke out. A bombardier in the Army Air Corps, Zamperini was in a plane that went down, and when he arrived on shore in Japan 47 days later, he was taken as a prisoner of war and tortured for two years. After his release, Zamperini became an inspirational figure, and his life served as the basis for the 2014 biography Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption."
"Who Was Louis Zamperini?
Louis Zamperini was a World War II veteran and Olympic distance runner. Zamperini competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and was set to compete again in the 1940 games in Tokyo, which were canceled when World War II broke out. A bombardier in the Army Air Corps, Zamperini was in a plane that went down, and when he arrived on shore in Japan 47 days later, he was taken as a prisoner of war and tortured for two years. After his release, Zamperini became an inspirational figure, and his life served as the basis for the 2014 biography Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption."
Louis Zamperini
Posted from biography.com
Olympics
WWII World War Two
POW/MIA
American History
Military History
Posted >1 y ago
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Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini (January 26, 1917 – July 2, 2014) was an American World War II prisoner of war survivor, inspirational speaker, and Olympic di...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that Olympic distance runner, US Army Air Corps B-24 bombardier, prisoner of war survivor in World War II, and Christian evangelist Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini died on July 2, 2014 at the age of 97.
Louis Zamperini Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pj-DDL8RcU
Images:
1. Louis Zamperini and his older brother Pete Zamperini
2. Pete and Louis Zamperini as kids
3. Louis Zamperini [left] and Don Lash at the finish line of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Trials
4. U.S. Navy Sailor Pete Zamperini at left and Army Air Corps LT Louis Zamperini with their proud mother between them
Background from {[http://www.americainwwii.com/articles/lucky-louie/]}
LUCKY LOUIE ZAMPERINI
Lou Zamperini was lucky. He survived a risky, put-up-your-dukes childhood and made it into the Olympics. But in May ’43, in a B-24 over the Pacific, his luck seemed to run out.
by Martin Jacobs
Young Louis Zamperini was bad news. He was angry and rebellious. He had a taste for alcohol and a penchant for fighting. The police always seemed to be chasing him for something. Back in those tough days of the Great Depression, his future looked pretty grim.
Louis Zamperini was born in Olean, New York, in 1917, the second of four children, and moved with his family to Torrance, California, in the 1920s. Like many kids, he didn’t think much about the consequences of his actions. He had a bravado that made him tough and resilient, but that also brought him some close shaves, such as the inevitable perilous falls that came with hopping freight trains. He almost drowned one day after plunging into the ocean. He was pulled out unconscious, but he survived—with the new nickname Lucky Louie.
As Zamperini entered his teenage years, he found an outlet for some of the energy that had led him to mischief: competitive distance running. Before long, he had set the interscholastic record in the mile. “Newspapers started calling me Zamp the Champ,” he says. “I relished every moment in the limelight, knowing at last I could make something of myself…. I won a scholarship to the University of Southern California and, at 18, I made the US Olympic track team in 1936 to compete in Germany.”
Zamperini partied all the way across the Atlantic on the USS Manhattan, drinking and dancing and gaining 14 pounds, losing any real chance to win an Olympic medal. Before 100,000 spectators in Berlin, Zamperini ran the 5,000-meter race and finished in eighth place. He placed first among the Americans in the race, though, and impressed Adolf Hitler. After the race, Hitler applauded him and grasped his hand, saying, “Ah, the boy with the fast finish!” Zamperini proudly recalls, “He didn’t impress me. Even if he had given me his wristwatch, it still wouldn’t have meant much to me. To me, he was just another dictator.”
After the competition, Zamperini hit the streets of Berlin to find souvenirs. There were hundreds of possibilities in the shops, but what he really wanted was a Nazi flag. Showing that he hadn’t completely put aside his mischievous ways, he scaled a 15-foot wall surrounding the Reich Chancellery (the German equivalent of the White House) and seized the Nazi swastika flag off the flagpole. The Germans caught him, but he wasn’t charged. In fact, when Lieutenant General Werner von Fritsch, commander in chief of the German army (who, in 1939, would be the first German general killed in World War II), found out who Zamperini was, he let him keep the flag. And he still has it.
The militant fascism Zamperini witnessed in Berlin soon affected him personally. In September 1940, the war in Europe and Japanese aggression in Asia led the US Congress to institute a peacetime draft. Selection began the next month. Zamperini had had a taste of military life as an Army Air Corps flight school cadet in the spring of 1941, but had washed out. By September 29, however, he was back in uniform, a duly drafted member of the US Army. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, despite pleading to remain in the infantry, he was shifted back to the air corps and sent to bombardier school in Houston. Officers Candidate School and further bombardier training followed at Midland, Texas. Then Zamperini was commissioned a second lieutenant and deployed to Hawaii with the 11th Bombardment Group, Seventh Air Force, as a master bombardier.
“My first combat mission left Kualoa Field, Oahu, on Christmas Eve of 1942,” Zamperini recalls. “We plastered the Japanese at Wake Island. Six missions later, Nauru, Makin, and Tarawa islands saw our B-24 bomber riddled with 600 bullet holes, with half our crew dead or wounded and one wheel and the right tail shot off. Luckily, even in the face of incredible danger, we landed safely.”
On May 27, 1943, Zamperini’s crew left Kualoa in the only B-24 available, the Green Hornet, to search for a B-25 reported shot down near Palmyra Island. The search continued until about 2 p.m., when both port engines failed, one after the other. The aircraft tumbled and turned, and within two minutes, it slammed into the sea with a terrific explosion. The fuselage and left wing hit the water simultaneously and the aircraft did a half cartwheel. “It felt like someone hit me in the head with a sledgehammer,” Zamperini says. “The crash forced me forward and down into the sea. I blacked out momentarily from the impact and found myself entangled in coiled wires and cables that wound around me like metal spaghetti.”
Some 70 feet down, Zamperini finally forced his way out of the sinking plane, scraping the skin off his back as he squeezed through a hole in the fuselage. He surfaced and caught his breath only to see fire, smoke, and debris on the water. “Swallowing a nauseous saltwater mixed with gasoline, oil, hydraulic fluid, and blood, I somehow managed to inflate my Mae West—my life jacket,” he says. “Then I noticed two crewmen about 20 feet away clinging to the side of a gas-tank float. I managed to grab onto a portion of a nylon parachute cord that was attached to an inflatable life raft. I climbed in, unhooked the oars, and rowed over to pick up our pilot, Russell Phillips, who was badly injured, and pulled him up into the raft. Then Francis McNamara, our tail-gunner, made it in. We were the only three survivors of the eleven-man crew.
“The next two days we saw B-25s searching for us, but they did not notice our flares or dye markers. Six bars of chocolate and a few cans of water lasted us awhile. Then, the only food for the next month and a half was two tiny fish, a two-foot shark, three birds, and four albatrosses. Rain showers seemed to arrive miraculously at appropriate intervals, a fact that started us wondering if someone up above was watching over us. We were in constant fear. Sometimes one shark would put its head right up on the raft and look at us. We’d whack him on the nose with the paddles.”
To help preserve sanity and morale, Zamperini coaxed the others into crooning hymns and Bing Crosby tunes. He cooked imaginary meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, tossing off brain teasers about how many eggs and how much baking powder to use. On the 27th day, a twin-engine Japanese KI-213 “Sally” bomber made several strafing passes. “I slid into the water, which was infested with sharks and hung below the raft to avoid the bullets,” Zamperini recalls. “Phil and Mac did the same. We could see the bullets pierce the raft, but luckily we weren’t hit.
"Six days later McNamara drew his last breath and slipped quietly into the sea. Phillips and I held a brief eulogy for him and buried him at sea. Then on the 47th day, after having drifted 2,000 miles, we at last made landfall in the Marshall Islands, as a Japanese harbor boat spotted us. We weren’t exactly rescued. The Japanese took us to Wotje, an island in the Marshall group. We were so weak, we could barely stand up. My normal weight of 165 pounds had dropped to 79 pounds. Someone gave us water and a few hard biscuits, our first food in eight days. Two days later, we were put on a merchant vessel and headed for Kwajalein. There we were confined to a detention building, where their treatment deteriorated to beatings, insect-filled rice balls, and confinement in eight-foot-deep holes carved in the coral.”
During captivity, Zamperini was used as a guinea pig by a Japanese doctor and injected with various substances. The experiments stopped only when he blacked out. On the wall of his wooden cell, he later found a crude engraving: “9 Marines marooned on Makin Island—August 12, 1942.” The names of the marines followed. It turned out that those men had been beheaded. Zamperini memorized the names so he could report their fate on his return home.
On the 42nd day of detention, Zamperini and Phillips were put aboard a ship bound for the island of Truk, in the Carolines, and from there to Yokohama, Japan. “‘My God,’ I thought, ‘I’m going to live though this,’” Zamperini recalls. “Maybe they thought it better to save the life of a famous athlete and Olympian than wantonly kill me. It made no sense. Whatever their rationale, I didn’t argue.”
At Yokohama, Zamperini helped unload 10,000-ton ships, shoveling out coal and refuse from the latrines. “The guards always had their favorite punishments, like doing pushups over the latrine, then pushing your head into it,” he says. “When the Japanese found out I was a star runner, they broke my nose three times.” Cruelty and abuse were part of daily life. On a march one day, Zamperini had a high fever and was falling behind. A guard yelled at him, “You lick your boots, or you die!” When Zamperini refused, the guard cracked him on the head with his belt buckle and brutalized him.
For the remainder of the war, Zamperini was moved from camp to camp, kept in a state of near starvation. He remembers being forced to eat rice off the floor, where visiting high-ranking Japanese officials clad in dress uniforms of white and gold braid tossed it. During one memorable interrogation in Ofuna, a camp outside Yokohama, memories of Zamperini’s college days came rushing back when he looked up at a Japanese interrogator and recognized him. It was James Sasaki, a classmate from the University of Southern California. Zamperini learned later that Sasaki had been a spy back in college, reporting ship movements in the harbor at Long Beach, California. “When the war started, Sasaki fled to Japan and eventually was placed in charge of 91 prisoner-of-war camps,” Zamperini says. “Sasaki tried to recruit me to broadcast anti-American propaganda, but I declined. To break my spirit, he then ordered me to run a relay against well-fed Japanese runners. Despite my near-skeletal condition, I prevailed.”
After a few weeks, Zamperini agreed to do a broadcast only if he could write the script. Sasaki agreed, and Zamperini made the broadcast to the United States in 1944. “My family was shocked to learn I was alive,” he says. “My parents had already received my Purple Heart for ‘wounds resulting in my death.’”
Sasaki wanted Zamperini to do a second broadcast, but this time using a Japanese script. He refused and was promptly sent to another punishment camp, where he was beaten by a sadistic officer named Sergeant Matsuhiro Watanabe, dubbed The Bird by the prisoners. Zamperini was already familiar with Watanabe from previous beatings at Ofuna. On one occasion, Watanabe beat him severely, then forced him to hold a six-foot four-by-four hardwood beam overhead at arm’s length. After 37 minutes, The Bird punched him in the stomach and the beam fell down on Zamperini’s head, knocking him out. As such beatings continued, all Zamperini could think about was revenge: “I would dream of strangling my prison guards.”
Soon afterward, the Japanese surrendered, and Zamperini and Phillips were liberated from the prison camp. “The guards disappeared, and I walked out the front gate waving my shirt to a B-29 as it flashed the message ‘the war is over’ in Morse code,” Zamperini recalls. “I have never forgotten the pilot returning my wave, and years later during a reunion in Chicago, I finally met the pilot. It was an emotional encounter for both of us.”
On September 6, 1945, a reporter for the New York Times caught up with Zamperini in Yokohama, interviewed him in depth, and wired home his incredible story. The story appeared in the paper three days later, but Zamperini himself would not appear in the States for a while. “It took me a month to reach home, resting and recuperating along the way,” he says.
Zamperini arrived at Long Beach, California, on October 5, 1945, and was promoted to captain and awarded the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters; the Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster; the Philippine Liberation Medal; and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and American Campaign Medal with battle stars. He arrived home at Torrance, California, to a hero’s reception. A high school athletic field and the Torrance airport were named after him.
After the hoopla faded, Zamperini found himself at loose ends and unsure of what to do next. His thoughts turned to the 1948 Olympics in London, but his battered body just didn’t respond the way it used to. He sank into despair and, once again, turned to alcohol and brawling. It took conversion under the ministry of the Reverend Billy Graham to turn things around.
In 1950, Zamperini returned to Japan as a missionary. His goal was to meet with and forgive the prison guards who had mistreated him. He was able to meet several, including his former classmate and tormentor Sasaki at the Sugamo prison, still awaiting war-crimes trials. “I embraced him and told him I forgave him,” Zamperini says. “I even pleaded for clemency on Sasaki’s behalf with a deposition to General [Douglas] MacArthur [military governor of US-occupied Japan], but to no avail.” Sasaki would remain in prison until 1952, when the American occupation of Japan ended.
In 1998, on his 81st birthday, Zamperini ran a one-kilometer leg of the Olympic torch run in Japan for the Winter Olympics in Nagano. During his stay in the country, he tried to locate Watanabe, who had gone into hiding after the war. Fortunately for Watanabe, the United States had stopped looking for war criminals in 1947 on orders from MacArthur, and all charges against him were dropped in 1952. “I was told that Watanabe was alive and sold life insurance after the war and became wealthy,” Zamperini says. “When I finally located Watanabe, he refused to talk to me…. I was disappointed I didn’t get to see Watanabe, but I’m fine with it now. I’ve been blessed.”
Today, Zamperini travels the world as an inspirational speaker. That’s not bad for a man who in 88 years has already been the subject of a 60 Minutes documentary, represented his country in the Olympics, survived wartime military service and prison camp, and lived to tell about more than one brush with death. Lucky Louie he is.
Update: Louis Zamperini passed away on July 2, 2014. A movie about his wartime experience, based on the best-selling book Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, was released in December 2014.
________________________________________
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick SGT Denny Espinosa LTC (Join to see)Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Michael Terrell SFC Chuck Martinez CSM Charles HaydenSMSgt Tom Burns MSgt James Clark-Rosa Wayne Soares 1SG Dan Capri MGySgt (Join to see)
Louis Zamperini Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pj-DDL8RcU
Images:
1. Louis Zamperini and his older brother Pete Zamperini
2. Pete and Louis Zamperini as kids
3. Louis Zamperini [left] and Don Lash at the finish line of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Trials
4. U.S. Navy Sailor Pete Zamperini at left and Army Air Corps LT Louis Zamperini with their proud mother between them
Background from {[http://www.americainwwii.com/articles/lucky-louie/]}
LUCKY LOUIE ZAMPERINI
Lou Zamperini was lucky. He survived a risky, put-up-your-dukes childhood and made it into the Olympics. But in May ’43, in a B-24 over the Pacific, his luck seemed to run out.
by Martin Jacobs
Young Louis Zamperini was bad news. He was angry and rebellious. He had a taste for alcohol and a penchant for fighting. The police always seemed to be chasing him for something. Back in those tough days of the Great Depression, his future looked pretty grim.
Louis Zamperini was born in Olean, New York, in 1917, the second of four children, and moved with his family to Torrance, California, in the 1920s. Like many kids, he didn’t think much about the consequences of his actions. He had a bravado that made him tough and resilient, but that also brought him some close shaves, such as the inevitable perilous falls that came with hopping freight trains. He almost drowned one day after plunging into the ocean. He was pulled out unconscious, but he survived—with the new nickname Lucky Louie.
As Zamperini entered his teenage years, he found an outlet for some of the energy that had led him to mischief: competitive distance running. Before long, he had set the interscholastic record in the mile. “Newspapers started calling me Zamp the Champ,” he says. “I relished every moment in the limelight, knowing at last I could make something of myself…. I won a scholarship to the University of Southern California and, at 18, I made the US Olympic track team in 1936 to compete in Germany.”
Zamperini partied all the way across the Atlantic on the USS Manhattan, drinking and dancing and gaining 14 pounds, losing any real chance to win an Olympic medal. Before 100,000 spectators in Berlin, Zamperini ran the 5,000-meter race and finished in eighth place. He placed first among the Americans in the race, though, and impressed Adolf Hitler. After the race, Hitler applauded him and grasped his hand, saying, “Ah, the boy with the fast finish!” Zamperini proudly recalls, “He didn’t impress me. Even if he had given me his wristwatch, it still wouldn’t have meant much to me. To me, he was just another dictator.”
After the competition, Zamperini hit the streets of Berlin to find souvenirs. There were hundreds of possibilities in the shops, but what he really wanted was a Nazi flag. Showing that he hadn’t completely put aside his mischievous ways, he scaled a 15-foot wall surrounding the Reich Chancellery (the German equivalent of the White House) and seized the Nazi swastika flag off the flagpole. The Germans caught him, but he wasn’t charged. In fact, when Lieutenant General Werner von Fritsch, commander in chief of the German army (who, in 1939, would be the first German general killed in World War II), found out who Zamperini was, he let him keep the flag. And he still has it.
The militant fascism Zamperini witnessed in Berlin soon affected him personally. In September 1940, the war in Europe and Japanese aggression in Asia led the US Congress to institute a peacetime draft. Selection began the next month. Zamperini had had a taste of military life as an Army Air Corps flight school cadet in the spring of 1941, but had washed out. By September 29, however, he was back in uniform, a duly drafted member of the US Army. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, despite pleading to remain in the infantry, he was shifted back to the air corps and sent to bombardier school in Houston. Officers Candidate School and further bombardier training followed at Midland, Texas. Then Zamperini was commissioned a second lieutenant and deployed to Hawaii with the 11th Bombardment Group, Seventh Air Force, as a master bombardier.
“My first combat mission left Kualoa Field, Oahu, on Christmas Eve of 1942,” Zamperini recalls. “We plastered the Japanese at Wake Island. Six missions later, Nauru, Makin, and Tarawa islands saw our B-24 bomber riddled with 600 bullet holes, with half our crew dead or wounded and one wheel and the right tail shot off. Luckily, even in the face of incredible danger, we landed safely.”
On May 27, 1943, Zamperini’s crew left Kualoa in the only B-24 available, the Green Hornet, to search for a B-25 reported shot down near Palmyra Island. The search continued until about 2 p.m., when both port engines failed, one after the other. The aircraft tumbled and turned, and within two minutes, it slammed into the sea with a terrific explosion. The fuselage and left wing hit the water simultaneously and the aircraft did a half cartwheel. “It felt like someone hit me in the head with a sledgehammer,” Zamperini says. “The crash forced me forward and down into the sea. I blacked out momentarily from the impact and found myself entangled in coiled wires and cables that wound around me like metal spaghetti.”
Some 70 feet down, Zamperini finally forced his way out of the sinking plane, scraping the skin off his back as he squeezed through a hole in the fuselage. He surfaced and caught his breath only to see fire, smoke, and debris on the water. “Swallowing a nauseous saltwater mixed with gasoline, oil, hydraulic fluid, and blood, I somehow managed to inflate my Mae West—my life jacket,” he says. “Then I noticed two crewmen about 20 feet away clinging to the side of a gas-tank float. I managed to grab onto a portion of a nylon parachute cord that was attached to an inflatable life raft. I climbed in, unhooked the oars, and rowed over to pick up our pilot, Russell Phillips, who was badly injured, and pulled him up into the raft. Then Francis McNamara, our tail-gunner, made it in. We were the only three survivors of the eleven-man crew.
“The next two days we saw B-25s searching for us, but they did not notice our flares or dye markers. Six bars of chocolate and a few cans of water lasted us awhile. Then, the only food for the next month and a half was two tiny fish, a two-foot shark, three birds, and four albatrosses. Rain showers seemed to arrive miraculously at appropriate intervals, a fact that started us wondering if someone up above was watching over us. We were in constant fear. Sometimes one shark would put its head right up on the raft and look at us. We’d whack him on the nose with the paddles.”
To help preserve sanity and morale, Zamperini coaxed the others into crooning hymns and Bing Crosby tunes. He cooked imaginary meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, tossing off brain teasers about how many eggs and how much baking powder to use. On the 27th day, a twin-engine Japanese KI-213 “Sally” bomber made several strafing passes. “I slid into the water, which was infested with sharks and hung below the raft to avoid the bullets,” Zamperini recalls. “Phil and Mac did the same. We could see the bullets pierce the raft, but luckily we weren’t hit.
"Six days later McNamara drew his last breath and slipped quietly into the sea. Phillips and I held a brief eulogy for him and buried him at sea. Then on the 47th day, after having drifted 2,000 miles, we at last made landfall in the Marshall Islands, as a Japanese harbor boat spotted us. We weren’t exactly rescued. The Japanese took us to Wotje, an island in the Marshall group. We were so weak, we could barely stand up. My normal weight of 165 pounds had dropped to 79 pounds. Someone gave us water and a few hard biscuits, our first food in eight days. Two days later, we were put on a merchant vessel and headed for Kwajalein. There we were confined to a detention building, where their treatment deteriorated to beatings, insect-filled rice balls, and confinement in eight-foot-deep holes carved in the coral.”
During captivity, Zamperini was used as a guinea pig by a Japanese doctor and injected with various substances. The experiments stopped only when he blacked out. On the wall of his wooden cell, he later found a crude engraving: “9 Marines marooned on Makin Island—August 12, 1942.” The names of the marines followed. It turned out that those men had been beheaded. Zamperini memorized the names so he could report their fate on his return home.
On the 42nd day of detention, Zamperini and Phillips were put aboard a ship bound for the island of Truk, in the Carolines, and from there to Yokohama, Japan. “‘My God,’ I thought, ‘I’m going to live though this,’” Zamperini recalls. “Maybe they thought it better to save the life of a famous athlete and Olympian than wantonly kill me. It made no sense. Whatever their rationale, I didn’t argue.”
At Yokohama, Zamperini helped unload 10,000-ton ships, shoveling out coal and refuse from the latrines. “The guards always had their favorite punishments, like doing pushups over the latrine, then pushing your head into it,” he says. “When the Japanese found out I was a star runner, they broke my nose three times.” Cruelty and abuse were part of daily life. On a march one day, Zamperini had a high fever and was falling behind. A guard yelled at him, “You lick your boots, or you die!” When Zamperini refused, the guard cracked him on the head with his belt buckle and brutalized him.
For the remainder of the war, Zamperini was moved from camp to camp, kept in a state of near starvation. He remembers being forced to eat rice off the floor, where visiting high-ranking Japanese officials clad in dress uniforms of white and gold braid tossed it. During one memorable interrogation in Ofuna, a camp outside Yokohama, memories of Zamperini’s college days came rushing back when he looked up at a Japanese interrogator and recognized him. It was James Sasaki, a classmate from the University of Southern California. Zamperini learned later that Sasaki had been a spy back in college, reporting ship movements in the harbor at Long Beach, California. “When the war started, Sasaki fled to Japan and eventually was placed in charge of 91 prisoner-of-war camps,” Zamperini says. “Sasaki tried to recruit me to broadcast anti-American propaganda, but I declined. To break my spirit, he then ordered me to run a relay against well-fed Japanese runners. Despite my near-skeletal condition, I prevailed.”
After a few weeks, Zamperini agreed to do a broadcast only if he could write the script. Sasaki agreed, and Zamperini made the broadcast to the United States in 1944. “My family was shocked to learn I was alive,” he says. “My parents had already received my Purple Heart for ‘wounds resulting in my death.’”
Sasaki wanted Zamperini to do a second broadcast, but this time using a Japanese script. He refused and was promptly sent to another punishment camp, where he was beaten by a sadistic officer named Sergeant Matsuhiro Watanabe, dubbed The Bird by the prisoners. Zamperini was already familiar with Watanabe from previous beatings at Ofuna. On one occasion, Watanabe beat him severely, then forced him to hold a six-foot four-by-four hardwood beam overhead at arm’s length. After 37 minutes, The Bird punched him in the stomach and the beam fell down on Zamperini’s head, knocking him out. As such beatings continued, all Zamperini could think about was revenge: “I would dream of strangling my prison guards.”
Soon afterward, the Japanese surrendered, and Zamperini and Phillips were liberated from the prison camp. “The guards disappeared, and I walked out the front gate waving my shirt to a B-29 as it flashed the message ‘the war is over’ in Morse code,” Zamperini recalls. “I have never forgotten the pilot returning my wave, and years later during a reunion in Chicago, I finally met the pilot. It was an emotional encounter for both of us.”
On September 6, 1945, a reporter for the New York Times caught up with Zamperini in Yokohama, interviewed him in depth, and wired home his incredible story. The story appeared in the paper three days later, but Zamperini himself would not appear in the States for a while. “It took me a month to reach home, resting and recuperating along the way,” he says.
Zamperini arrived at Long Beach, California, on October 5, 1945, and was promoted to captain and awarded the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters; the Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster; the Philippine Liberation Medal; and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and American Campaign Medal with battle stars. He arrived home at Torrance, California, to a hero’s reception. A high school athletic field and the Torrance airport were named after him.
After the hoopla faded, Zamperini found himself at loose ends and unsure of what to do next. His thoughts turned to the 1948 Olympics in London, but his battered body just didn’t respond the way it used to. He sank into despair and, once again, turned to alcohol and brawling. It took conversion under the ministry of the Reverend Billy Graham to turn things around.
In 1950, Zamperini returned to Japan as a missionary. His goal was to meet with and forgive the prison guards who had mistreated him. He was able to meet several, including his former classmate and tormentor Sasaki at the Sugamo prison, still awaiting war-crimes trials. “I embraced him and told him I forgave him,” Zamperini says. “I even pleaded for clemency on Sasaki’s behalf with a deposition to General [Douglas] MacArthur [military governor of US-occupied Japan], but to no avail.” Sasaki would remain in prison until 1952, when the American occupation of Japan ended.
In 1998, on his 81st birthday, Zamperini ran a one-kilometer leg of the Olympic torch run in Japan for the Winter Olympics in Nagano. During his stay in the country, he tried to locate Watanabe, who had gone into hiding after the war. Fortunately for Watanabe, the United States had stopped looking for war criminals in 1947 on orders from MacArthur, and all charges against him were dropped in 1952. “I was told that Watanabe was alive and sold life insurance after the war and became wealthy,” Zamperini says. “When I finally located Watanabe, he refused to talk to me…. I was disappointed I didn’t get to see Watanabe, but I’m fine with it now. I’ve been blessed.”
Today, Zamperini travels the world as an inspirational speaker. That’s not bad for a man who in 88 years has already been the subject of a 60 Minutes documentary, represented his country in the Olympics, survived wartime military service and prison camp, and lived to tell about more than one brush with death. Lucky Louie he is.
Update: Louis Zamperini passed away on July 2, 2014. A movie about his wartime experience, based on the best-selling book Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, was released in December 2014.
________________________________________
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick SGT Denny Espinosa LTC (Join to see)Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Michael Terrell SFC Chuck Martinez CSM Charles HaydenSMSgt Tom Burns MSgt James Clark-Rosa Wayne Soares 1SG Dan Capri MGySgt (Join to see)
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LTC Stephen F.
Louis Zamperini | Captured By Grace
He survived a plane crash, was lost at sea for 47 days, and was brutally tortured in a war camp. After his return from WWII, Louis Zamperini was tormented by...
Louis Zamperini | Captured By Grace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvH1O7vi1hc
Images:
1. 1Lt Louis Zamperini, bombardier of this B-24D Liberator 'Superman' peering through a hole in the aircraft from a 20mm shell over Nauro
2. 1Lt Louis Zamperini, bombardier of this B-24D Liberator 'Superman' peering through a hole in the aircraft from a 20mm shell over Nauru, Apr 20 1943; photo taken at Funafuti, Gilbert Islands
3. Missing Air Crew Report 16163, page 1 of 2. Report documents the loss of the Russell Phillips crew on May 27, 1943 near Palmyra Atoll. The crew included Louis Zamperini.
4. Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe abused prisoners at POW camps in Omori, Naoetsu and Mitsushima
Biographies
1. ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=845
2. military.wikia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini
1. Background from {[https://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=845]}
Louis Zamperini
Surname Zamperini
Given Name Louis
Born 26 Jan 1917
Died 2 Jul 2014
Country United States
Category Military-Air
Gender Male
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
ww2dbaseLouis Silvie Zamperini was born in 1917 in Olean, New York, United States to Anthony Zamperini and Louise Dossi. In 1919, his family moved to Torrance, California, United States. His older brother Peter introduced him to running track when he was attending Torrance High School; Zamperini would later note that this sport got him out of trouble during this time when he was known for getting into physical fights with fellow students. In 1934, he set a world interscholastic record for the mile run at 4 minutes and 21.2 seconds during the preliminary meet to the California state championships. He entered the University of Southern California with a scholarship for track. In 1936, he became member of the United States Olympic team, becoming the youngest American qualifier in the event of 5,000-meter run. During the Olympic games in Berlin, Germany, he met Adolf Hitler, who was impressed with Zamperini's speed. In 1938, he set a national collegiate mile record at 4 minutes and 8 seconds, despite shin injuries during that race.
In Sep 1941, months before the start of the Pacific War, Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. With the rank of second lieutenant, he served with 372nd Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Group, US 7th Air Force as a bombardier on B-24 Liberator bombers based on Funafuti, Ellice Islands. During a mission in May 1943, while on a search and rescue mission in the Pacific Ocean, the B-24 bomber "The Green Hornet" developed mechanical trouble and crashed 850 miles west of Oahu, US Territory of Hawaii, killing 8 of the 11 crew members. Zamperini, Russell Phillips, and Francis McNamara survived the crash, but McNamara would die after 33 days on the sea. Zamperini and Phillips reached land in the Marshall Islands after 46 days at sea. In captivity in the Marshall Islands and then at the Ofuna Prisoner of War Camp in Kamakura, Japan, Zamperini suffered various forms of mistreatment. He met the aviator Gregory "Pappy" Boyington while at Ofuna. He was declared as missing in action and later killed in action as the Japanese shared no information regarding his status during the war.
ww2dbaseAfter his liberation after the end of the war, Zamperini married Cynthia Applewhite in 1946. He suffered severe post traumatic stress disorder, developed alcoholism, and for some time was obsessed with hunting down and killing Mutsuhiro Watanabe, the guard who had beaten him severely during captivity. He later found comfort in religion (in which preacher Billy Graham played a major role) and became a inspirational speaker; in that new role, one of his favorite topics was forgiveness, as he had done with the Japanese guards who had abused him during the war. He ran the torch relay in the United States for the 1984 Summer Olympics and in Japan for the 1998 Winter Olympics. During the latter, he attempted to meet Watanabe, but he was not successful. In Mar 2005, he visited the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. He resided in Los Angeles, California, United States until his passing in Jul 2014.
Last Major Revision: Sep 2014
Louis Zamperini Timeline
26 Jan 1917 Louis Zamperini was born in Olean, New York, United States.
27 May 1943 While on a search and rescue mission in the Pacific Ocean, the B-24 bomber "The Green Hornet" developed mechanical trouble and crashed 850 miles west of Oahu, US Territory of Hawaii, killing 8 of the 11 crew members. Louis Zamperini, Russell Phillips, and Francis McNamara survived the crash.
13 Jul 1943 On the 47th day of drifting at sea in teh Pacific Ocean, Louis Zamperini and Russell Phillips were found and captured by the Japanese Navy in the Marshall Islands.
7 Dec 1946 The Torrance Municipal Airport in Torrance, California, United States was renamed Zamperini Field in honor of Louis Zamperini.
10 May 2008 Louis Zamperini was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations.
24 Apr 2011 Louis Zamperini was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Azusa Pacific University of Azusa, California, United States.
20 May 2011 Louis Zamperini delivered the graduation speech at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, United States.
21 May 2011 Louis Zamperini was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Bryant University of Smithfield, Rhode Island, United States.
22 May 2011 Louis Zamperini threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Red Sox and Cubs professional baseball game at Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
7 Jun 2012 Louis Zamperini was the guest to the American television program "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno".
2 Jul 2014 Louis Zamperini passed away at his home from pneumonia in Los Angeles, California, United States.
2. Background from {[https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini]}
Louis Silvie Zamperini
Born January 26, 1917 at Olean, New York, United States
Died on July 2, 2014 at the age of 97.
Post-WWII occupation Inspirational speaker
Spouse Cynthia Applewhite (m. 1946–2001; her death)
Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini (born January 26, 1917) is an Italian-American World War II prisoner of war survivor, inspirational speaker, and former Olympic distance runner.
Louis Zamperini was born January 26, 1917 in Olean, New York, to Italian immigrants Anthony Zamperini and Louise Dossi. He had an older brother named Pete, and two younger sisters, Virginia and Sylvia. The family moved to Torrance, California in 1919, where Louie attended Torrance High School. Louie and his family spoke no English when they moved to California, making him a target for bullies. His father taught him how to box in self-defense. Soon he claimed to be "beating the tar out of every one of them..... but [he] was so good at it that [he] started relishing the idea of getting even. [He] was sort of addicted to it."[1]
To counteract Louie's knack for getting into trouble, his older brother Pete got him involved in the school track team. In 1934 Zamperini set a world interscholastic record for the mile, clocking in at 04:21.2 at the preliminary meet to the state championships.[2][3][4][5] The following week he won the championships with a 04:27.8[6] That record helped him win a scholarship to the University of Southern California and eventually a place on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team in the 5000 metres, at 19 the youngest U.S. qualifier ever in that event.[7]
While attending USC, Zamperini was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity and lived in the fraternity house along with his brother.
Olympic career
Louis Zamperini
Nationality United States
Height 6.1
Weight 228
In the Olympic trials at Randall's Island, Zamperini finished in a dead tie in a heat against world-record holder Don Lash and qualified for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany, though neither he nor Lash had much chance of winning the 5000 meter race. Zamperini has related several amusing anecdotes from his Olympic experience, including gorging himself on the boat trip to Europe. "I was a Depression-era kid who had never even been to a drugstore for a sandwich," he said. "And all the food was free. I had not just one sweet roll, but about seven every morning, with bacon and eggs. My eyes were like saucers.” By the end of the trip, Zamperini, in common with most athletes on the ship, had gained a good deal of weight – in Zamperini's case, 12 pounds. While the weight gain was not advantageous for his running it was necessary for his health, as he had lost 15 pounds while training in the summer heat in New York for the Olympic Trials.
Zamperini finished eighth in the 5000 meter distance event at that Olympics, but his final lap of 56 seconds was fast enough to catch the attention of Adolf Hitler, who insisted on a personal meeting.[8] As Zamperini tells the story, Hitler shook his hand, and said simply "Ah, you're the boy with the fast finish."[9] According to a profile on Bill Stern's Sports Newsreel radio program, Zamperini climbed a flag pole during the 1936 Olympic games and stole the personal flag of Hitler.
Two years later, in 1938, Zamperini set a national collegiate mile record of 4:12 which held for fifteen years, earning him the nickname "Torrance Tornado".[10]
Military career and prisoner of war
Louis Zamperini
Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch United States Army Air Forces
Years of service 1941–1945
Rank Captain [11]
Unit 372nd Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Group[11] 7th Air Force
Battles/wars World War II
Awards Purple Heart; Distinguished Flying Cross; Prisoner of War Medal
Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in September 1941,[12] and earned a commission as a second lieutenant. He was deployed to the Pacific island of Funafuti as a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator bomber. In April 1942, the plane was badly damaged in combat, and the crew were assigned to conduct a search for a lost aircraft and crew. They were given another B-24, The Green Hornet, notorious among the pilots as a defective "lemon plane'. While on the search, mechanical difficulties caused the plane to crash into the ocean 850 miles west of Oahu, killing eight of the eleven men aboard.[13]
The three survivors (Zamperini and his crewmates, pilot Russel Allen "Phil" Phillips and Francis "Mac" McNamara), with little food and no water, subsisted on captured rainwater and small fish eaten raw. They caught two albatrosses, which they ate and used to catch fish, all while fending off constant shark attacks and nearly being capsized by a storm.[14][15] They were strafed multiple times by a Japanese bomber, puncturing their life raft, but no one was hit. McNamara died after thirty-three days at sea.[13]
On their 47th day adrift, Zamperini and Phillips reached land in the Marshall Islands[16] and were immediately captured by the Japanese Navy. They were held in captivity and severely beaten and mistreated until the end of the war in August, 1945. Zamperini was held in the Japanese Prisoner-of-war camp at Ōfuna for captives who were not registered as prisoners of war (POW). He was especially tormented by sadistic prison guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed "The Bird"), who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur's list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Held at the same camp was then-Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington, and in his book, Baa Baa Black Sheep, he discusses Zamperini and the Italian recipes he would write to keep the prisoners' minds off the food and conditions.[17]
Zamperini had at first been declared missing at sea, and then, a year and a day after his disappearance, killed in action. When he eventually returned home he received a hero's welcome.[18]
Post-war life
In 1946 he married Cynthia Applewhite, to whom he remained married until her death in 2001. After the war and suffering from severe post traumatic stress disorder, Zamperini became a born again Christian after attending a crusade led by evangelist Billy Graham in 1949 in Los Angeles. Graham later helped Zamperini launch a new career as a Christian inspirational speaker. His wife Cynthia was instrumental in getting him to go to Billy Graham's meetings and not leaving before he was converted. One of his favorite themes is "forgiveness," and he has visited many of the guards from his POW days to let them know that he has forgiven them. Many of the war criminals who committed the worst atrocities were held in the Sugamo prison in Tokyo. In October 1950, Zamperini went to Japan, gave his testimony and preached to them through an interpreter (a missionary named Fred Jarvis). The colonel in charge of the prison encouraged any of the prisoners who recognized Zamperini to come forward and meet him again. Zamperini threw his arms around each of them. Once again he explained the Christian Gospel of forgiveness to them. The prisoners were somewhat surprised by Zamperini's genuine affection for those who had once ill-treated him. Most of the prisoners accepted copies of the New Testament which had been given by the Gideons.
For his 81st birthday in January 1998, Zamperini ran a leg in the Olympic Torch relay for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. While there, he attempted to meet with his chief and most brutal tormentor during the war, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who had evaded prosecution as a war criminal, but the latter refused to see him. In March 2005 he returned to Germany to visit the Berlin Olympic Stadium for the first time since he competed there.[19]
Torrance High School's home football, soccer, and track stadium is called Zamperini Stadium, and the entrance plaza at USC's track & field stadium was named Louis Zamperini Plaza in 2004. In his 90s, Zamperini continues to attend USC football games and befriended star quarterback Matt Barkley in 2009.[20]
In October 2008, Zamperini was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago, IL.
On April 24, 2011, Zamperini received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters from Azusa Pacific University. The following month, on May 20, 2011, Zamperini delivered Bryant University's 2011 baccalaureate address and received Bryant's inaugural Distinguished Character Award. The following day, May 21, Bryant presented Zamperini with an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters. The next day he threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Red Sox-Cubs game at Fenway Park in Boston.
In late July 2011, Zamperini received the Kappa Sigma Golden Heart Award during the Kappa Sigma 68th Biennial Grand Conclave held at the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas.[21]
Zamperini appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on June 7, 2012, speaking of his life in general, the 1936 Olympics and his World War II exploits.[22] Zamperini currently resides in Hollywood, California. The Torrance airport was renamed Zamperini Field in the 1960s.
Books
Zamperini wrote two memoirs about his experiences, both of them bearing the same title, Devil at My Heels. The first (written with Helen Itria) was published by Dutton in 1956. The second (with David Rensin) appeared in 2003 from Morrow.
Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit: An American Legend, has written a biography of Zamperini.[23] The book, titled Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, was published by Random House in 2010 and was a #1 The New York Times bestseller.[24][25] It was named the top book of 2010 by Time.[26]
References
1. ↑ USC News, "The Great Zamperini", 2003. Usc.edu. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
2. ↑ Berkow, Ira (2003-02-15). Not Yet Ready for His Last Mile. nytimes.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
3. ↑ Note: while this suggests that others had run faster, it is still an outstanding time. Cs.uml.edu. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
4. ↑ Track & Field News: Edwards Announces Retirement. Trackandfieldnews.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
5. ↑ Track & Field News • View topic – High School Mile Record Holders since 1930. Trackandfieldnews.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
6. ↑ "California State Meet Results - 1915 to present". Hank Lawson. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
7. ↑ Hymans, Richard (2008). The History of the United State Olympic Trials – Track & Field. usatf.org
8. ↑ Franklin County Veterans Journal. (PDF) . Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
9. ↑ Laura Hillenbrand (2010). Unbroken. Random House. pp. 35.
10. ↑ "Louis Zamperini. ABC special. [1]. (Video). Retrieved on 2013-02- 26.
11. ↑ Jump up to:11.0 11.1 Veterans Museum & Memorial Center – Air Garden, B24 Memorial Honoring The Personnel Who Crewed And Supported the B-24. Veteranmuseum.org. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
12. ↑ City of Torrance's Page on Zamperini. Torranceca.gov. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
13. ↑ Jump up to:13.0 13.1 Clip from 60 Minutes' documentary on Louis Zamperini. Copyright, 60 Minutes, all rights reserved. Video online, courtesy YouTube, [2]
14. ↑ Gustkey, Earl (19 February 1998). "Former Track Star, POW, Doesn't Get Closure at 81 in His Return to Japan". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 27 July 2011.
15. ↑ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/24/olympian-runner-hero-wwii-honored-anew/
16. ↑ Laura Hillenbrand (2010). Unbroken. Random House. pp. 171.
17. ↑ Clip from 60 Minutes' documentary on Louis Zamperini. Copyright, 60 Minutes, all rights reserved. Video online, courtesy YouTube, [3]
18. ↑ Clip from 60 Minutes' documentary on Louis Zamperini. Copyright, 60 Minutes, all rights reserved. Video online, courtesy YouTube. [4]
19. ↑ Louis Zamperini returns to Berlin after 69 years. US Dept of State press release (2005-03-10)
20. ↑ Jeff Fellenzer, There is no goal that USC's Matt Barkley won't pursue, Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2009, Accessed October 29, 2009.
21. ↑ Kappa Sigma Fall 2011 Caduceus, The Caduceus of Kappa Sigma Fall 2011, January 26, 2012, Accessed June 7, 2012. pp. 34.
22. ↑ Tonight Show with Jay Leno
23. ↑ bio on Laura Hillenbrand. Seabiscuitonline.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
24. ↑ Pitts, Edward Lee "'We had adversities'" WORLD 18 December 2010. pp. 46–7.
25. ↑ Gregory Cowles (November 18, 2011). "Inside the List".
26. ↑ The Top 10 Everything of 2010. Time.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03."
FYI SSG Paul HeadleeCPL Michael PeckSgt (Join to see)PO1 Steve DittoCPL Douglas ChryslerSSG Michael Noll Maj Marty HoganSPC Michael Oles SRTSgt George RodriguezPO3 Charles Streich SGT (Join to see)SGT David A. 'Cowboy' GrothSFC (Join to see)SGT Steve McFarland PO1 H Gene LawrencePO2 Frederick Dunn SMSgt David A Asbury CSM (Join to see) SPC Nancy Greene TSgt David L.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvH1O7vi1hc
Images:
1. 1Lt Louis Zamperini, bombardier of this B-24D Liberator 'Superman' peering through a hole in the aircraft from a 20mm shell over Nauro
2. 1Lt Louis Zamperini, bombardier of this B-24D Liberator 'Superman' peering through a hole in the aircraft from a 20mm shell over Nauru, Apr 20 1943; photo taken at Funafuti, Gilbert Islands
3. Missing Air Crew Report 16163, page 1 of 2. Report documents the loss of the Russell Phillips crew on May 27, 1943 near Palmyra Atoll. The crew included Louis Zamperini.
4. Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe abused prisoners at POW camps in Omori, Naoetsu and Mitsushima
Biographies
1. ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=845
2. military.wikia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini
1. Background from {[https://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=845]}
Louis Zamperini
Surname Zamperini
Given Name Louis
Born 26 Jan 1917
Died 2 Jul 2014
Country United States
Category Military-Air
Gender Male
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
ww2dbaseLouis Silvie Zamperini was born in 1917 in Olean, New York, United States to Anthony Zamperini and Louise Dossi. In 1919, his family moved to Torrance, California, United States. His older brother Peter introduced him to running track when he was attending Torrance High School; Zamperini would later note that this sport got him out of trouble during this time when he was known for getting into physical fights with fellow students. In 1934, he set a world interscholastic record for the mile run at 4 minutes and 21.2 seconds during the preliminary meet to the California state championships. He entered the University of Southern California with a scholarship for track. In 1936, he became member of the United States Olympic team, becoming the youngest American qualifier in the event of 5,000-meter run. During the Olympic games in Berlin, Germany, he met Adolf Hitler, who was impressed with Zamperini's speed. In 1938, he set a national collegiate mile record at 4 minutes and 8 seconds, despite shin injuries during that race.
In Sep 1941, months before the start of the Pacific War, Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. With the rank of second lieutenant, he served with 372nd Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Group, US 7th Air Force as a bombardier on B-24 Liberator bombers based on Funafuti, Ellice Islands. During a mission in May 1943, while on a search and rescue mission in the Pacific Ocean, the B-24 bomber "The Green Hornet" developed mechanical trouble and crashed 850 miles west of Oahu, US Territory of Hawaii, killing 8 of the 11 crew members. Zamperini, Russell Phillips, and Francis McNamara survived the crash, but McNamara would die after 33 days on the sea. Zamperini and Phillips reached land in the Marshall Islands after 46 days at sea. In captivity in the Marshall Islands and then at the Ofuna Prisoner of War Camp in Kamakura, Japan, Zamperini suffered various forms of mistreatment. He met the aviator Gregory "Pappy" Boyington while at Ofuna. He was declared as missing in action and later killed in action as the Japanese shared no information regarding his status during the war.
ww2dbaseAfter his liberation after the end of the war, Zamperini married Cynthia Applewhite in 1946. He suffered severe post traumatic stress disorder, developed alcoholism, and for some time was obsessed with hunting down and killing Mutsuhiro Watanabe, the guard who had beaten him severely during captivity. He later found comfort in religion (in which preacher Billy Graham played a major role) and became a inspirational speaker; in that new role, one of his favorite topics was forgiveness, as he had done with the Japanese guards who had abused him during the war. He ran the torch relay in the United States for the 1984 Summer Olympics and in Japan for the 1998 Winter Olympics. During the latter, he attempted to meet Watanabe, but he was not successful. In Mar 2005, he visited the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. He resided in Los Angeles, California, United States until his passing in Jul 2014.
Last Major Revision: Sep 2014
Louis Zamperini Timeline
26 Jan 1917 Louis Zamperini was born in Olean, New York, United States.
27 May 1943 While on a search and rescue mission in the Pacific Ocean, the B-24 bomber "The Green Hornet" developed mechanical trouble and crashed 850 miles west of Oahu, US Territory of Hawaii, killing 8 of the 11 crew members. Louis Zamperini, Russell Phillips, and Francis McNamara survived the crash.
13 Jul 1943 On the 47th day of drifting at sea in teh Pacific Ocean, Louis Zamperini and Russell Phillips were found and captured by the Japanese Navy in the Marshall Islands.
7 Dec 1946 The Torrance Municipal Airport in Torrance, California, United States was renamed Zamperini Field in honor of Louis Zamperini.
10 May 2008 Louis Zamperini was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations.
24 Apr 2011 Louis Zamperini was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Azusa Pacific University of Azusa, California, United States.
20 May 2011 Louis Zamperini delivered the graduation speech at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, United States.
21 May 2011 Louis Zamperini was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Bryant University of Smithfield, Rhode Island, United States.
22 May 2011 Louis Zamperini threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Red Sox and Cubs professional baseball game at Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
7 Jun 2012 Louis Zamperini was the guest to the American television program "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno".
2 Jul 2014 Louis Zamperini passed away at his home from pneumonia in Los Angeles, California, United States.
2. Background from {[https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini]}
Louis Silvie Zamperini
Born January 26, 1917 at Olean, New York, United States
Died on July 2, 2014 at the age of 97.
Post-WWII occupation Inspirational speaker
Spouse Cynthia Applewhite (m. 1946–2001; her death)
Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini (born January 26, 1917) is an Italian-American World War II prisoner of war survivor, inspirational speaker, and former Olympic distance runner.
Louis Zamperini was born January 26, 1917 in Olean, New York, to Italian immigrants Anthony Zamperini and Louise Dossi. He had an older brother named Pete, and two younger sisters, Virginia and Sylvia. The family moved to Torrance, California in 1919, where Louie attended Torrance High School. Louie and his family spoke no English when they moved to California, making him a target for bullies. His father taught him how to box in self-defense. Soon he claimed to be "beating the tar out of every one of them..... but [he] was so good at it that [he] started relishing the idea of getting even. [He] was sort of addicted to it."[1]
To counteract Louie's knack for getting into trouble, his older brother Pete got him involved in the school track team. In 1934 Zamperini set a world interscholastic record for the mile, clocking in at 04:21.2 at the preliminary meet to the state championships.[2][3][4][5] The following week he won the championships with a 04:27.8[6] That record helped him win a scholarship to the University of Southern California and eventually a place on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team in the 5000 metres, at 19 the youngest U.S. qualifier ever in that event.[7]
While attending USC, Zamperini was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity and lived in the fraternity house along with his brother.
Olympic career
Louis Zamperini
Nationality United States
Height 6.1
Weight 228
In the Olympic trials at Randall's Island, Zamperini finished in a dead tie in a heat against world-record holder Don Lash and qualified for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany, though neither he nor Lash had much chance of winning the 5000 meter race. Zamperini has related several amusing anecdotes from his Olympic experience, including gorging himself on the boat trip to Europe. "I was a Depression-era kid who had never even been to a drugstore for a sandwich," he said. "And all the food was free. I had not just one sweet roll, but about seven every morning, with bacon and eggs. My eyes were like saucers.” By the end of the trip, Zamperini, in common with most athletes on the ship, had gained a good deal of weight – in Zamperini's case, 12 pounds. While the weight gain was not advantageous for his running it was necessary for his health, as he had lost 15 pounds while training in the summer heat in New York for the Olympic Trials.
Zamperini finished eighth in the 5000 meter distance event at that Olympics, but his final lap of 56 seconds was fast enough to catch the attention of Adolf Hitler, who insisted on a personal meeting.[8] As Zamperini tells the story, Hitler shook his hand, and said simply "Ah, you're the boy with the fast finish."[9] According to a profile on Bill Stern's Sports Newsreel radio program, Zamperini climbed a flag pole during the 1936 Olympic games and stole the personal flag of Hitler.
Two years later, in 1938, Zamperini set a national collegiate mile record of 4:12 which held for fifteen years, earning him the nickname "Torrance Tornado".[10]
Military career and prisoner of war
Louis Zamperini
Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch United States Army Air Forces
Years of service 1941–1945
Rank Captain [11]
Unit 372nd Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Group[11] 7th Air Force
Battles/wars World War II
Awards Purple Heart; Distinguished Flying Cross; Prisoner of War Medal
Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in September 1941,[12] and earned a commission as a second lieutenant. He was deployed to the Pacific island of Funafuti as a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator bomber. In April 1942, the plane was badly damaged in combat, and the crew were assigned to conduct a search for a lost aircraft and crew. They were given another B-24, The Green Hornet, notorious among the pilots as a defective "lemon plane'. While on the search, mechanical difficulties caused the plane to crash into the ocean 850 miles west of Oahu, killing eight of the eleven men aboard.[13]
The three survivors (Zamperini and his crewmates, pilot Russel Allen "Phil" Phillips and Francis "Mac" McNamara), with little food and no water, subsisted on captured rainwater and small fish eaten raw. They caught two albatrosses, which they ate and used to catch fish, all while fending off constant shark attacks and nearly being capsized by a storm.[14][15] They were strafed multiple times by a Japanese bomber, puncturing their life raft, but no one was hit. McNamara died after thirty-three days at sea.[13]
On their 47th day adrift, Zamperini and Phillips reached land in the Marshall Islands[16] and were immediately captured by the Japanese Navy. They were held in captivity and severely beaten and mistreated until the end of the war in August, 1945. Zamperini was held in the Japanese Prisoner-of-war camp at Ōfuna for captives who were not registered as prisoners of war (POW). He was especially tormented by sadistic prison guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed "The Bird"), who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur's list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Held at the same camp was then-Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington, and in his book, Baa Baa Black Sheep, he discusses Zamperini and the Italian recipes he would write to keep the prisoners' minds off the food and conditions.[17]
Zamperini had at first been declared missing at sea, and then, a year and a day after his disappearance, killed in action. When he eventually returned home he received a hero's welcome.[18]
Post-war life
In 1946 he married Cynthia Applewhite, to whom he remained married until her death in 2001. After the war and suffering from severe post traumatic stress disorder, Zamperini became a born again Christian after attending a crusade led by evangelist Billy Graham in 1949 in Los Angeles. Graham later helped Zamperini launch a new career as a Christian inspirational speaker. His wife Cynthia was instrumental in getting him to go to Billy Graham's meetings and not leaving before he was converted. One of his favorite themes is "forgiveness," and he has visited many of the guards from his POW days to let them know that he has forgiven them. Many of the war criminals who committed the worst atrocities were held in the Sugamo prison in Tokyo. In October 1950, Zamperini went to Japan, gave his testimony and preached to them through an interpreter (a missionary named Fred Jarvis). The colonel in charge of the prison encouraged any of the prisoners who recognized Zamperini to come forward and meet him again. Zamperini threw his arms around each of them. Once again he explained the Christian Gospel of forgiveness to them. The prisoners were somewhat surprised by Zamperini's genuine affection for those who had once ill-treated him. Most of the prisoners accepted copies of the New Testament which had been given by the Gideons.
For his 81st birthday in January 1998, Zamperini ran a leg in the Olympic Torch relay for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. While there, he attempted to meet with his chief and most brutal tormentor during the war, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who had evaded prosecution as a war criminal, but the latter refused to see him. In March 2005 he returned to Germany to visit the Berlin Olympic Stadium for the first time since he competed there.[19]
Torrance High School's home football, soccer, and track stadium is called Zamperini Stadium, and the entrance plaza at USC's track & field stadium was named Louis Zamperini Plaza in 2004. In his 90s, Zamperini continues to attend USC football games and befriended star quarterback Matt Barkley in 2009.[20]
In October 2008, Zamperini was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago, IL.
On April 24, 2011, Zamperini received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters from Azusa Pacific University. The following month, on May 20, 2011, Zamperini delivered Bryant University's 2011 baccalaureate address and received Bryant's inaugural Distinguished Character Award. The following day, May 21, Bryant presented Zamperini with an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters. The next day he threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Red Sox-Cubs game at Fenway Park in Boston.
In late July 2011, Zamperini received the Kappa Sigma Golden Heart Award during the Kappa Sigma 68th Biennial Grand Conclave held at the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas.[21]
Zamperini appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on June 7, 2012, speaking of his life in general, the 1936 Olympics and his World War II exploits.[22] Zamperini currently resides in Hollywood, California. The Torrance airport was renamed Zamperini Field in the 1960s.
Books
Zamperini wrote two memoirs about his experiences, both of them bearing the same title, Devil at My Heels. The first (written with Helen Itria) was published by Dutton in 1956. The second (with David Rensin) appeared in 2003 from Morrow.
Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit: An American Legend, has written a biography of Zamperini.[23] The book, titled Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, was published by Random House in 2010 and was a #1 The New York Times bestseller.[24][25] It was named the top book of 2010 by Time.[26]
References
1. ↑ USC News, "The Great Zamperini", 2003. Usc.edu. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
2. ↑ Berkow, Ira (2003-02-15). Not Yet Ready for His Last Mile. nytimes.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
3. ↑ Note: while this suggests that others had run faster, it is still an outstanding time. Cs.uml.edu. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
4. ↑ Track & Field News: Edwards Announces Retirement. Trackandfieldnews.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
5. ↑ Track & Field News • View topic – High School Mile Record Holders since 1930. Trackandfieldnews.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
6. ↑ "California State Meet Results - 1915 to present". Hank Lawson. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
7. ↑ Hymans, Richard (2008). The History of the United State Olympic Trials – Track & Field. usatf.org
8. ↑ Franklin County Veterans Journal. (PDF) . Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
9. ↑ Laura Hillenbrand (2010). Unbroken. Random House. pp. 35.
10. ↑ "Louis Zamperini. ABC special. [1]. (Video). Retrieved on 2013-02- 26.
11. ↑ Jump up to:11.0 11.1 Veterans Museum & Memorial Center – Air Garden, B24 Memorial Honoring The Personnel Who Crewed And Supported the B-24. Veteranmuseum.org. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
12. ↑ City of Torrance's Page on Zamperini. Torranceca.gov. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
13. ↑ Jump up to:13.0 13.1 Clip from 60 Minutes' documentary on Louis Zamperini. Copyright, 60 Minutes, all rights reserved. Video online, courtesy YouTube, [2]
14. ↑ Gustkey, Earl (19 February 1998). "Former Track Star, POW, Doesn't Get Closure at 81 in His Return to Japan". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 27 July 2011.
15. ↑ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/24/olympian-runner-hero-wwii-honored-anew/
16. ↑ Laura Hillenbrand (2010). Unbroken. Random House. pp. 171.
17. ↑ Clip from 60 Minutes' documentary on Louis Zamperini. Copyright, 60 Minutes, all rights reserved. Video online, courtesy YouTube, [3]
18. ↑ Clip from 60 Minutes' documentary on Louis Zamperini. Copyright, 60 Minutes, all rights reserved. Video online, courtesy YouTube. [4]
19. ↑ Louis Zamperini returns to Berlin after 69 years. US Dept of State press release (2005-03-10)
20. ↑ Jeff Fellenzer, There is no goal that USC's Matt Barkley won't pursue, Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2009, Accessed October 29, 2009.
21. ↑ Kappa Sigma Fall 2011 Caduceus, The Caduceus of Kappa Sigma Fall 2011, January 26, 2012, Accessed June 7, 2012. pp. 34.
22. ↑ Tonight Show with Jay Leno
23. ↑ bio on Laura Hillenbrand. Seabiscuitonline.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03.
24. ↑ Pitts, Edward Lee "'We had adversities'" WORLD 18 December 2010. pp. 46–7.
25. ↑ Gregory Cowles (November 18, 2011). "Inside the List".
26. ↑ The Top 10 Everything of 2010. Time.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-03."
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Louis Zamperini Interview (second) : Icons of Faith Series
Pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie sits down with Louis Zamperini, a war hero and subject of the bestselling book Unbroken—also made into a feature film. Loui...
Louis Zamperini Interview (second) : Icons of Faith Series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Jq3_3DdxM
Images:
1. U.S. Army Air Corps 2LT Louis Silvie Zamperini
2. Louis Zamperini and Cynthia Applewhite smiling on their wedding day om May 25, 1946
3. Louis Zamperini and Billy Graham at the 1949 Los Angeles Crusade where Zamperini made a life-changing decision for Christ.
4. Louis Zamperini returned to Japan, in the fall of 1950, and had an opportunity to visit with some of his fellow Sugamo Prison prisoners and former guards.
Background from {[https://reasonabletheology.org/the-rest-of-the-story-louis-zamperini-after-unbroken/]}
The Rest of the Story: The Life of Louis Zamperini After ‘Unbroken’
The story of Louis Zamperini captured the attention of Americans in the 1940’s and again in recent years thanks to the biography by Laura Hillenbrand Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption and the hit movie Unbroken.
Those familiar with either the movie or the book will recall that after his days as a troubled youth Louis took up running and became a star athlete. Louis went on to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. After WW2 broke out, he became a bombardier on a B-24 bomber.
Louis and his fellow crewmen cheated death multiple times, but none more harrowing than after his plane went down in the Pacific Ocean. While most died in the crash, Zamperini and another airman survived a total of 47 days adrift in the ocean on a life raft (a third survived the crash but died at sea).
After being rescued from the water by enemy forces, both men became prisoners of war and were eventually sent to Japanese POW camps.
Louis endured constant brutality at the hands of a man the prisoners referred to as The Bird. His real name was Mutsuhiro Watanabe, and he was by all accounts a sadistically cruel and abusive Japanese soldier who terrorized the prisoners. He especially had it out for the Olympic athlete, whom he had regarded as his ‘number one prisoner.’ As such, Louis experienced even worse treatment than the other prisoners.
Watanabe was so notorious in his abusiveness, he was listed as number 23 on General MacArthur’s list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan after the war. However, after years of hiding from the authorities (and being thought to have killed himself) he would never face trial for his actions. He died in 2003.
The movie Unbroken does an excellent job chronicling the trials that Zamperini experienced as a downed airman adrift at sea. It vividly depicts his time in a hellish POW camp. It is an inspiring tale of how with courage and determination he persevered through it all.
But the story doesn’t end there.
A Life Unraveling
Unlike the book, the film does not depict the great struggle that followed Zamperini’s return to the United States after the war ended and his prison camp was liberated.
Louis was now married and was rather famous–he was after all, a renowned athlete who came back to life after being declared dead by the War Department. In his words, “after being declared dead and finding that we’d crashed and survived the 47 day drift and nearly 2,000 miles, you get quite a bit of publicity.” 1
He went on speaking tours and was treated as a war hero. But despite outward appearances, Zamperini’s life was falling apart.
Louis was struggling to cope with his horrific experiences during his two years as a POW. Watanabe was a constant figure in his nightmares. Zamperini found that he was in many ways still under the control and power of The Bird.
Filled with anger, anxiety, and hatred, Zamperini found solace in alcohol and in concocting plans to return to Japan to murder The Bird. This was the only way Louis felt he could finally be free of him.
As he continued to withdraw into depression and alcoholism, he would also lash out unpredictably. Louis was on the verge of losing his family. “I got married, I had a little girl and I continued to drink and continued to party, and my wife refused to go with me,” Louis said. “Pretty soon I found myself fading away, to the point where I realized that I was in serious need of help.”
From Brokenness to Redemption
In 1949 Louis Zamperini grudgingly attended a Billy Graham Crusade in Los Angeles at the urging of his wife. It was the first extended Crusade event that Graham ever held, and it was the one which propelled him to become a nationally-known figure.
After the first night he went, Louis was upset and did not want to attend any similar events in the future. He recalled in an interview:
I got under conviction and got mad because of the Scriptures he read, grabbed my wife and said, “Let’s get out of here. Don’t ever bring me back to a place like this again.” But the next day she persuaded me in going back. I said, “Okay, I’ll go under one condition. When this fellow says, ‘Every head bowed and every eye closed,’ I’m getting out.” She said, “Fine.”
However, he was talked into going to hear Graham preach the next night also.
After again hearing of the forgiveness and salvation of Jesus Christ, Louis Zamperini gave his life to the Lord and was saved. This time, salvation was not from shark-infested waters or from the horrors of a POW camp.
In Christ, Zamperini found eternal, life-changing salvation that would save his soul and rescue him from his downward spiral.
The nightmares–which had been so frequent and so intense that Louis came to fear going to bed–stopped.
He poured all his alcohol down the drain the night he was saved.
Louis Zamperini was a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Listen to the message that Billy Graham preached to Louis and thousands of others in Los Angeles:
• October 22, 1949: “The Only Sermon Jesus Ever Wrote”
• Oct. 23, 1949: “Why God Allows Communism to Flourish”
Newspapers across the country were reporting on the Crusade, and many ran articles on Zamperini’s conversion. When he returned a week later to speak to the crowd, he was quoted as declaring “I have accepted Christ and from now on I am going to be an honest-to-God Christian.”
Just as he had promised when he was desperate and adrift at sea, Zamperini dedicated his life to God. “Now, as God leads, I am leaving my business work and planning to work with young people…I’d rather build character–and win boys for Christ–than build a fortune,” Louis said.
He eventually started a camp for troubled youth–the Victory Boys Camp. Here he poured his life into serving God by helping boys and young men who were not unlike himself in his younger years.
Forgiving the Unforgivable
Amazingly, after his conversion Zamperini’s desire for vengeance left him completely.
Louis forgave his former captors and later met with many of them. He greeted them warmly and shared the Gospel with them and many accepted Christ.
During a speaking tour in Tokyo in 1952, Louis had the opportunity to meet with prisoners at Sugamo prison, which was filled with 850 Japanese war criminals.
After speaking to the prisoners, Louis had requested to meet with his former guards personally.
“I looked out and saw them coming down the aisle and, of course, I recognized each one of them vividly. I didn’t even think of my reaction—I jumped off the stage, ran down and threw my arm around them, and they withdrew from me. They couldn’t understand the forgiveness. We went in the room and there, of course, I continued to press the issue of Christianity, you see. And all but one made a decision for Christ.”
One former Japanese soldier wondered how he could forgive these men who treated him so badly. Louis responded,
I said, “Well, Mr. Sasaki, the greatest story of forgiveness the world’s ever known was the Cross. When Christ was crucified He said, ‘Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.’ And I said, ‘It is only through the Cross that I can come back here and say this, but I do forgive you.” Then he responded to the invitation to become a Christian.
This is a tremendously powerful image of loving your enemies and forgiving others as we have been forgiven in Christ.
Louis even attempted to meet with Watanabe when he returned to Japan as part of the Olympic ceremonies in 1998. His former tormentor refused. Instead, Louis sent him a letter which expressed his forgiveness.
Here are the words that he wrote to The Bird, the man that tortured and dehumanized him as a POW for so many months:
To Mutsuhiro Watanabe,
As a result of my prisoner war experience under your unwarranted and unreasonable punishment, my post-war life became a nightmare. It was not so much due to the pain and suffering as it was the tension of stress and humiliation that caused me to hate with a vengeance.
Under your discipline, my rights, not only as a prisoner of war but also as a human being, were stripped from me. It was a struggle to maintain enough dignity and hope to live until the war’s end.
The post-war nightmares caused my life to crumble, but thanks to a confrontation with God through the evangelist Billy Graham, I committed my life to Christ. Love has replaced the hate I had for you. Christ said, “Forgive your enemies and pray for them.”
As you probably know, I returned to Japan in 1952 and was graciously allowed to address all the Japanese war criminals at Sugamo Prison… I asked then about you, and was told that you probably had committed Hara Kiri, which I was sad to hear. At that moment, like the others, I also forgave you and now would hope that you would also become a Christian.
Such radical forgiveness is made possibly by an overwhelming sense of Christ’s love and forgiveness for us.
More than just a tale of courage and resilience, Louis Zamperini’s life is a powerful look at the transforming grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
FYI LTC John Shaw 1SG Steven ImermanGySgt Gary CordeiroSgt Jim BelanusSGM Bill FrazerSGT Randell Rose[SGT Denny EspinosaA1C Riley SandersSSgt Clare MaySSG Robert WebsterCSM Chuck StaffordPFC Craig KarshnerSFC Bernard WalkoSPC Nancy GreenePVT Mark Zehner Lt Col Charlie BrownSP5 Dennis Loberger SSG Robert Mark Odom 1LT Peter DustonSPC Woody Bullard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Jq3_3DdxM
Images:
1. U.S. Army Air Corps 2LT Louis Silvie Zamperini
2. Louis Zamperini and Cynthia Applewhite smiling on their wedding day om May 25, 1946
3. Louis Zamperini and Billy Graham at the 1949 Los Angeles Crusade where Zamperini made a life-changing decision for Christ.
4. Louis Zamperini returned to Japan, in the fall of 1950, and had an opportunity to visit with some of his fellow Sugamo Prison prisoners and former guards.
Background from {[https://reasonabletheology.org/the-rest-of-the-story-louis-zamperini-after-unbroken/]}
The Rest of the Story: The Life of Louis Zamperini After ‘Unbroken’
The story of Louis Zamperini captured the attention of Americans in the 1940’s and again in recent years thanks to the biography by Laura Hillenbrand Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption and the hit movie Unbroken.
Those familiar with either the movie or the book will recall that after his days as a troubled youth Louis took up running and became a star athlete. Louis went on to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. After WW2 broke out, he became a bombardier on a B-24 bomber.
Louis and his fellow crewmen cheated death multiple times, but none more harrowing than after his plane went down in the Pacific Ocean. While most died in the crash, Zamperini and another airman survived a total of 47 days adrift in the ocean on a life raft (a third survived the crash but died at sea).
After being rescued from the water by enemy forces, both men became prisoners of war and were eventually sent to Japanese POW camps.
Louis endured constant brutality at the hands of a man the prisoners referred to as The Bird. His real name was Mutsuhiro Watanabe, and he was by all accounts a sadistically cruel and abusive Japanese soldier who terrorized the prisoners. He especially had it out for the Olympic athlete, whom he had regarded as his ‘number one prisoner.’ As such, Louis experienced even worse treatment than the other prisoners.
Watanabe was so notorious in his abusiveness, he was listed as number 23 on General MacArthur’s list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan after the war. However, after years of hiding from the authorities (and being thought to have killed himself) he would never face trial for his actions. He died in 2003.
The movie Unbroken does an excellent job chronicling the trials that Zamperini experienced as a downed airman adrift at sea. It vividly depicts his time in a hellish POW camp. It is an inspiring tale of how with courage and determination he persevered through it all.
But the story doesn’t end there.
A Life Unraveling
Unlike the book, the film does not depict the great struggle that followed Zamperini’s return to the United States after the war ended and his prison camp was liberated.
Louis was now married and was rather famous–he was after all, a renowned athlete who came back to life after being declared dead by the War Department. In his words, “after being declared dead and finding that we’d crashed and survived the 47 day drift and nearly 2,000 miles, you get quite a bit of publicity.” 1
He went on speaking tours and was treated as a war hero. But despite outward appearances, Zamperini’s life was falling apart.
Louis was struggling to cope with his horrific experiences during his two years as a POW. Watanabe was a constant figure in his nightmares. Zamperini found that he was in many ways still under the control and power of The Bird.
Filled with anger, anxiety, and hatred, Zamperini found solace in alcohol and in concocting plans to return to Japan to murder The Bird. This was the only way Louis felt he could finally be free of him.
As he continued to withdraw into depression and alcoholism, he would also lash out unpredictably. Louis was on the verge of losing his family. “I got married, I had a little girl and I continued to drink and continued to party, and my wife refused to go with me,” Louis said. “Pretty soon I found myself fading away, to the point where I realized that I was in serious need of help.”
From Brokenness to Redemption
In 1949 Louis Zamperini grudgingly attended a Billy Graham Crusade in Los Angeles at the urging of his wife. It was the first extended Crusade event that Graham ever held, and it was the one which propelled him to become a nationally-known figure.
After the first night he went, Louis was upset and did not want to attend any similar events in the future. He recalled in an interview:
I got under conviction and got mad because of the Scriptures he read, grabbed my wife and said, “Let’s get out of here. Don’t ever bring me back to a place like this again.” But the next day she persuaded me in going back. I said, “Okay, I’ll go under one condition. When this fellow says, ‘Every head bowed and every eye closed,’ I’m getting out.” She said, “Fine.”
However, he was talked into going to hear Graham preach the next night also.
After again hearing of the forgiveness and salvation of Jesus Christ, Louis Zamperini gave his life to the Lord and was saved. This time, salvation was not from shark-infested waters or from the horrors of a POW camp.
In Christ, Zamperini found eternal, life-changing salvation that would save his soul and rescue him from his downward spiral.
The nightmares–which had been so frequent and so intense that Louis came to fear going to bed–stopped.
He poured all his alcohol down the drain the night he was saved.
Louis Zamperini was a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Listen to the message that Billy Graham preached to Louis and thousands of others in Los Angeles:
• October 22, 1949: “The Only Sermon Jesus Ever Wrote”
• Oct. 23, 1949: “Why God Allows Communism to Flourish”
Newspapers across the country were reporting on the Crusade, and many ran articles on Zamperini’s conversion. When he returned a week later to speak to the crowd, he was quoted as declaring “I have accepted Christ and from now on I am going to be an honest-to-God Christian.”
Just as he had promised when he was desperate and adrift at sea, Zamperini dedicated his life to God. “Now, as God leads, I am leaving my business work and planning to work with young people…I’d rather build character–and win boys for Christ–than build a fortune,” Louis said.
He eventually started a camp for troubled youth–the Victory Boys Camp. Here he poured his life into serving God by helping boys and young men who were not unlike himself in his younger years.
Forgiving the Unforgivable
Amazingly, after his conversion Zamperini’s desire for vengeance left him completely.
Louis forgave his former captors and later met with many of them. He greeted them warmly and shared the Gospel with them and many accepted Christ.
During a speaking tour in Tokyo in 1952, Louis had the opportunity to meet with prisoners at Sugamo prison, which was filled with 850 Japanese war criminals.
After speaking to the prisoners, Louis had requested to meet with his former guards personally.
“I looked out and saw them coming down the aisle and, of course, I recognized each one of them vividly. I didn’t even think of my reaction—I jumped off the stage, ran down and threw my arm around them, and they withdrew from me. They couldn’t understand the forgiveness. We went in the room and there, of course, I continued to press the issue of Christianity, you see. And all but one made a decision for Christ.”
One former Japanese soldier wondered how he could forgive these men who treated him so badly. Louis responded,
I said, “Well, Mr. Sasaki, the greatest story of forgiveness the world’s ever known was the Cross. When Christ was crucified He said, ‘Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.’ And I said, ‘It is only through the Cross that I can come back here and say this, but I do forgive you.” Then he responded to the invitation to become a Christian.
This is a tremendously powerful image of loving your enemies and forgiving others as we have been forgiven in Christ.
Louis even attempted to meet with Watanabe when he returned to Japan as part of the Olympic ceremonies in 1998. His former tormentor refused. Instead, Louis sent him a letter which expressed his forgiveness.
Here are the words that he wrote to The Bird, the man that tortured and dehumanized him as a POW for so many months:
To Mutsuhiro Watanabe,
As a result of my prisoner war experience under your unwarranted and unreasonable punishment, my post-war life became a nightmare. It was not so much due to the pain and suffering as it was the tension of stress and humiliation that caused me to hate with a vengeance.
Under your discipline, my rights, not only as a prisoner of war but also as a human being, were stripped from me. It was a struggle to maintain enough dignity and hope to live until the war’s end.
The post-war nightmares caused my life to crumble, but thanks to a confrontation with God through the evangelist Billy Graham, I committed my life to Christ. Love has replaced the hate I had for you. Christ said, “Forgive your enemies and pray for them.”
As you probably know, I returned to Japan in 1952 and was graciously allowed to address all the Japanese war criminals at Sugamo Prison… I asked then about you, and was told that you probably had committed Hara Kiri, which I was sad to hear. At that moment, like the others, I also forgave you and now would hope that you would also become a Christian.
Such radical forgiveness is made possibly by an overwhelming sense of Christ’s love and forgiveness for us.
More than just a tale of courage and resilience, Louis Zamperini’s life is a powerful look at the transforming grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
FYI LTC John Shaw 1SG Steven ImermanGySgt Gary CordeiroSgt Jim BelanusSGM Bill FrazerSGT Randell Rose[SGT Denny EspinosaA1C Riley SandersSSgt Clare MaySSG Robert WebsterCSM Chuck StaffordPFC Craig KarshnerSFC Bernard WalkoSPC Nancy GreenePVT Mark Zehner Lt Col Charlie BrownSP5 Dennis Loberger SSG Robert Mark Odom 1LT Peter DustonSPC Woody Bullard
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