Brandon Hudspeth 4th Period 12/10/10

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is an amazingly narrated biography. It revolves around the life of Louis Zamperini. It follows his amazing life, from his birth in 1917, to his current life as an inspirational speaker. This book puts heavy emphasis, and detail, on Louis service and survival as a POW in World War II. Louis Zamperini was born in Orleans, New York, 1917; to Louise and Anthony Zamperini a second generation family of Italian-American Immigrants. They soon moved young Louis and his brother, Pete, to Torrance, California. In his boyhood, Louis was a cunning, uncontrollable delinquent. He started drinking at the age of eight, when he broke into numerous houses. As a teenager, with the training from his brother, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a talent that brought him to the Berlin Olympics in 1936. He finished eighth in the 5,000 meter, but his final lap caught the attention of Adolf Hitler, who shook his hand. Hitlers only words were, The boy with the fast finish. Louis enlisted in the United States Air Forces in 1941, and was deployed to Hawaii as a B-24 bomber, known for its weakness and inability to safely ditch, or crash land on water. The worst happened; his aircraft went down in the Pacific, due to mechanical failure, in May 1943. Only three men survived the ditch: Louie, his best friend and pilot, Russell Phillips; and Mac, a new recruit. The three men drifted over 2,000 miles in the ocean over a total of 47 days, with no provisions, in a six by two foot raft. Louis and Phil survived, and were rescued by the Japanese Navy who immediately fed them and treated them as equals. They were soon sent to POW camps. The first was Ofuna, it was an interrogation camp for high-value capture en would be starved, beaten, and broken to divulge military secrets; The camp was held secret to the outside world. One of the many memorable parts of the book was

Brandon Hudspeth 4th Period 12/10/10

what a guard at Ofuna said. The guards said that we werent POWs, we were unarmed combatants against the empire of japan, and did not have any rights whatsoever (192) Louie was led through a few more camps, and eventually was declared dead by the U.S. after 13 months of being MIA. This led to him becoming the punching-bag for the overseers of the camp, they could do anything; he was already dead. Louie spent the last year of the war under the control of a psychopath camp commander, nick-named The Bird. One of his demands was that men salute not only him but his window. He often left the office vacant and hid crouched in a nearby bush, baseball bat in hand, ready to club men who failed to salute to the window (240). The Bird viciously beat Louie every single day. In one instance he had over 200 men punch Louie in the face for allegedly stealing a fish. The worst event was when Louie was beaten in the head by the brass metal end of a belt swung at full force, twice. After Hiroshima, the Bird fled in fear of being executed. Louie soon returned stateside to his family. He quickly met a beautiful girl, Cynthia, at two weeks of R&R that were provided to veterans, at Miami Beach. He married her in under two weeks, and their marriage fell apart when Louie fell apart. In every single one of Louies dreams, he was being hit in the head with the belt, while he had his hands on the Birds throat, but he wouldnt die. He soon became an alcoholic and a drinker. Cynthia was enlightened by one of Billy Grahams services. She said she wouldnt divorce him if he went to listen to one of his speeches. As he was about to storm out during a prayer, Louie had a flashback. He remembered lying in the raft, telling God, If you will save me, I will serve you forever. He thus began his life as a Christian Speaker.

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After a year he saved up enough money to visit Japan. He was going to meet all of the POW camp guards at Sugamo prison. The guards were astonished when Louie ran to them. He had his hand extended, with a smile on his face, to the men who had abused him so horribly. This was when the war ended for Louie. Laura Hillenbrand discovered Louis Zamperini immediately after writing Seabiscuit. As I was writing Seabiscuit, I kept coming across a name, Zamperini. She called him, and then arranged for an appointment where she was mesmerized for hours listening to his story. He is the primary source, but Hillenbrand has many statistics, and a lot of information. This is why she has 50 pages in the back of the book dedicated to referencing every single piece of information she used in writing the book. She conducted 76 telephone interviews with Louie Zamperini, and Louie lent his scrapbooks, one weighs in at over 60 pounds. Hillenbrand wrote this book as a narrative biography of Louis Zamperini, she used every bit of fact that she could, while retrieving opinion from Zamperini on what he felt during every moment. She was very much unbiased in her writing; and glorified those guards and civilians who were compassionate. Hillenbrand knows how to weave the facts from the war together, with every single event detailed from Louis life in what he was feeling while it happened. She retrieved so much information for this book, and that was the only flaw. The only thing that made this book nonfiction, was the fact that two out of every ten pages were statistics. I will recommend this book to all my friends who have to do a review. I would most definitely recommend this book to anybody. It is by far the best non-fiction book I have ever read.