He was one of the fastest men alive, who made it from a humble beginning to the Olympics.
But when World War II came around, could this athlete turned war hero outrun death itself?
This is the story of Louis Zamperini, and what would come to be known as the Miracle
on the Pacific.
Zamperini’s story began in 1917, in a humble New York residence populated by two Italian
immigrants who spoke no English.
Louis had an older brother named Pete and two younger sisters, but from an early age
he tended to run into trouble.
His strict Catholic parents kept a close eye on him, but Louis had a tendency to get into
danger.
Not only did he frequently scrap with bullies who picked on him for his Italian accent,
but he once got nabbed by the police for stealing a beer.
And then there was the time he nearly died in a house fire before the family’s move
to California, and the time he nearly died by falling into an oil rig.
It was clear something needed to change - and the answer turned out to be sports.
His father taught Louis to box, and soon he was punching back at his bullies and winning
just about every fight - but he maybe enjoyed it a little too much.
It wasn’t going to keep him out of trouble, especially as he entered high school.
But his older brother Pete had another idea.
A star on the track team, he brought Louis on board - which may not have been the best
thing for his own athletic prospects.
It turned out Louis was fast.
Very fast.
Instead of outrunning the cops, the younger Zamperini brother was soon outrunning the
competition by the end of his freshman year.
He was soon undefeated, taking down his own brother’s records and setting all-time bests
for the mile.
He wound up getting a scholarship to the University of Southern California where he became a track
star - but a far bigger spotlight for his running skills was beckoning.
It was 1936, and America’s best athletes were about to enter the biggest spotlight
possible.
Zamperini qualified for the Berlin Olympics on one of the hottest days of the year in
New York, in a race that saw many other racers collapse due to the triple-digits heat.
To this day, he’s the youngest American to qualify for the 5,000 meter race.
While he didn’t win the race, coming in eighth, his final lap shocked the world with
a stunning fifty-six second time, even getting the attention of the leader of their host
nation.
And that’s how Louis Zamperini met Adolf Hitler, with the German dictator insisting
on a personal meeting.
The Olympics were over, but Hitler and the war he would help launch would cast a long
shadow over Zamperini’s life.
Zamperini returned to college, setting a national record for the fastest collegiate mile, but
tensions were ramping up around the world, and it was clear war was coming.
The man nicknamed the “Torrance Tornado” didn’t want to wait for war to break out
and potentially get drafted, so in September 1941 he enlisted in the Army Air Force.
Like his running career, he blazes his way through the ranks and was a Second Lieutenant
by the time he was sent to the island nation of Tuvalu as part of the crew on the B-24
bomber Super Man.
Zamperini was already a sports star - but he was about to become a hero.
He was soon assigned to the role of bombardier as the US military moved against the Japanese-held
island of Nauru.
The crew pulled off a successful raid, but the consequences were severe.
The bomber took heavy damage when they were attacked by three Japanese Zero warplanes,
with over five hundred holes shot into the ship’s hull.
The crew didn’t escape unscathed either, with Zamperini losing one man and helping
to save the lives of four others, who were wounded in the assault.
Super Man’s days as a bomber were over, but Zamperini’s World War II battle was
just beginning.
Zamperini and the rest of his crew were transferred back to Hawaii and assigned to a new bomber,
the Green Hornet.
But there were already rumbles around the base that this bomber had a history of mechanical
difficulties.
That didn’t stop the brass from sending it out on a search-and-rescue mission to look
for a lost aircraft and its crew.
It was May 27th, 1943, and the Green Hornet was over eight hundred miles from Hawaii when
it encountered mechanical difficulties, crashing into the ocean.
All eleven men aboard were declared missing in action.
After a year with no sign of them, the crew was declared killed in action, and Louis Zamperini
was assumed to be one of the many heroic war dead of World War II.
But the video’s not even half over.
So you know there’s more to the story.
Eight of the eleven crew members of the Green Hornet were killed immediately, but three
survived and managed to get away from the wreckage on life rafts.
They were Russell Allen Phillips, Francis McNamara, and Louis Zamperini.
But while they had survived the crash, their battle was just beginning.
They had barely any food and no water - and were surrounded by nothing but salt water.
A desperate struggle to survive ensued, with the trio collecting rainwater, catching small
fish, and trying to kill any birds that landed on their raft.
And if that wasn’t enough, they had to survive each other.
Tensions rose quickly when McNamara got desperate and ate their meager supply of chocolate,
but proved himself an able ally when a shark attacked the boat.
He grabbed an oar and was able to fend off the massive carnivorous fish - but alas, the
shark didn’t have an oar allergy and they weren’t able to capture it for food.
As the days dragged on, they developed methods for survival, including using pieces of bird
meat as bait to catch fish.
But other dangers awaited, including storms and the constant threat of Japanese war planes
- several of which strafed the raft with bullets, barely missing them.
But the human body can only take so much.
It had been thirty-three days at sea, with the men surviving on barely any food and whatever
water they could harvest from the sky.
McNamara’s body gave out first, succumbing to the brutal conditions.
The two remaining men wrapped his body in whatever they had on hand, pushing it overboard
and giving their fallen comrade a solemn, informal funeral at sea.
And with that, the Green Hornet’s crew was down to two.
It would be forty-seven days before Zamperini and Phillips would see another soul - but
it wouldn’t be a rescue.
The two survivors washed ashore the Marshall Islands, but the small country was currently
under Japanese military occupation, and the American soldiers were quickly taken into
custody.
They were immediately subjected to the hospitality of the Japanese empire - notorious for its
harsh beatings and interrogations, often in violation of international laws governing
the treatment of POWs.
But they hadn’t been classified as POWs.
And their toughest battle was just beginning.
It was just over a month when Zamperini and Phillips were transferred from the Marshall
Islands to Japan, where they were taken to the notorious Ofuna camp near Yokohama.
This camp wasn’t for standard Prisoners of War - it was for high-value prisoners,
typically officers and those like pilots and submarine crew who had in-depth knowledge
of military technology.
Japan kept this facility mostly off the books, not classifying it as a prisoner camp and
even denying access to the International Red Cross.
While the official Japanese position was that it was only a temporary holding facility,
the reality under its brutal commander, Yokura Sashizo, was very different.
Life at Ofuna had one goal - to break down its captives.
The first hardship was solitary confinement - of an unusual kind.
Captives were housed in individual cells and talking was strictly forbidden.
Wait, who would they talk to if they were in solo cells?
Under the strict supervision of the guards, even talking to themselves was forbidden.
The cells were bare, with no blankets and only the clothes on their back, Meals consisted
of only a small portion of rice and soup.
The closest thing to recreation allowed was sitting on the outside of the cell, staring
straight ahead.
But when the interrogations began, boredom would have been welcome.
Inmates were frequently beaten and hit with wooden clubs, both during interrogation and
for the slightest infraction.
Guards taunted inmates that everyone thought they were dead and no one was coming for them.
Another tactic was threatening executions - soldiers were told that they would be shot
immediately if they didn’t answer questions.
Six inmates died at the camp, leading to the commander eventually being brought up on war
crimes charges after the war.
Zamperini spent over a year at Ofuna, but his fight was far from over.
He would be shuffled around to other camps, including Tokyo’s Omori, before being sent
to his final destination - Naoetsu, a brutal camp in northern Japan.
At these two camps, he would meet one of his most implacable enemies - the cruel prison
guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe.
This notorious Imperial Japanese soldier was nicknamed “The Bird”, and he was famous
for the brutal beatings he dealt out to prisoners of war.
Unlike other guards, he didn’t seem to care if the people he abused made it out alive
- even practicing his judo moves on a man who had just undergone an appendectomy.
Zamperini was famous - and that was about to come back to haunt him.
As an Olympic hero, Zamperini had high value to his captors, and Watanabe intended to use
him.
He wanted Zamperini to broadcast a propaganda message condemning the American war effort.
When Zamperini refused, Watanabe ordered every prisoner in the camp to take turns beating
him.
Zamperini thought he was free of his tormentor when he was transferred - but the implacable
Watanabe had been promoted to a higher position at Naoetsu, and his torment continued.
As the war dragged on, The Bird’s tortures escalated.
The sadistic commander enjoyed having a celebrity under his control, and the torture often resembled
a game.
Once, he forced the weak and malnourished Louis to race against a camp guard, beating
him for losing.
Late in the war, he punished him by forcing him to hold a heavy beam over his head, threatening
to shoot him if he dropped it.
But Louis didn’t drop it.
He didn’t break, staring straight ahead at Watanabe until the mad guard lost his mind,
attacking his prisoner and beating him viciously.
But Zamperini found some light in the darkness.
Many other officers were held at the camp, including the famous war hero Greg “Pappy”
Boyington, and the captives developed a sense of camaraderie.
They would talk about what they missed back home, and Zamperini became a popular figure
for his tales of his family’s old-school Italian recipes.
The men were able to keep their spirits strong as they continued to hope for rescue.
And in 1945, it was right around the corner.
American planes soared overhead, and the guards scattered.
Zamperini briefly tried to seek out Watanabe for revenge, but his tormenter had already
fled the camp.
And more than a year after he had been declared dead, Louis Zamperini returned to life, being
flown back to the United States to the shock of a grateful nation - including his grieving
parents, who had been told their son was lost over the Pacific.
Louis Zamperini’s war was over, but he still had battles to fight.
He recovered from his injuries, but was haunted by the torments he experienced.
The 47 days he battled to survive on the open sea, and the tortures The Bird and other guards
inflicted on him, haunted him long after the war.
He found himself having dark nightmares, fantasizing about strangling his captors, and took to
alcohol to dull his pain.
But while he was troubled, he wasn’t alone - not anymore.
He had married Cynthia Applewhite only a year after the war, and she was determined to not
let him sink into despair.
He found hope in an unexpected place.
Zamperini, now a father of two, was encouraged by his wife to join her at the religious events
hosted by the famous preacher Billy Graham.
He had spent a long time praying during his captivity, and these meetings helped him rediscover
his faith and let go of his anger.
His nightmares slowly went away, and Zamperini found a new purpose.
He became an evangelist himself, preaching forgiveness, and even went to visit many of
the guards who were involved in his captivity.
One piece of closure, though, would elude him.
Watanabe was originally charged with war crimes for his abuse of prisoners, but went into
hiding and was able to avoid capture.
The charges were dropped in 1952, and Watanabe remained completely unrepentant for the rest
of his life.
Almost five decades later, when Zamperini returned to Japan to carry the Olympic torch,
he asked to meet with Watanabe to forgive him.
But Watanabe had no regrets about his treatment of Japan’s enemies, and refused to meet
the American war hero.
But this rejection didn’t stop Zamperini from living well.
He published a memoir, titled Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience,
and Redemption, which succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
It spent four years on the New York Times best-seller list and a shocking fourteen weeks
at number one.
And soon, Hollywood came calling.
Angelina Jolie directed, the Coen brothers helped write the screenplay, and Jack O’Connell
starred as Louis Zamperini’s story came to the big screen - followed by a sequel that
chronicled his religious journey.
As for Zamperini himself, he enjoyed fifty-five years of marriage before his wife passed away,
and lived to the age of 97.
His death in 2014 came seventy years after he was first declared dead in World War II
- one more record he set before he went to his reward, for outrunning the grim reaper
for seven decades.
For the story of another of America’s greatest war heroes, check out “The Insanely Crazy
Story of a Tiny Soldier”, or watch this video instead.