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Zamperini’s War

By David Margolick

• Nov. 19, 2010

While the body counts mount in Afghanistan and Iraq, another military tally, less wrenching and tragic but poignant nonetheless, quietly proceeds. Every day more than 700 veterans of World War II die, and with each one goes a story, or dozens of them. Laura Hillenbrand reached Louis Zamperini just in the nick of time — he was in his mid-80s when she found him, and 93 now— and it’s an excellent thing, for his is surely one of the most extraordinary war stories of all.

In late May 1943, the B-24 carrying the 26-year-old Zamperini went down over the Pacific. For nearly seven weeks — longer, Hillenbrand believes, than any other such instance in recorded history — Zamperini and his pilot managed to survive on a fragile raft. They traveled 2,000 miles, only to land in a series of Japanese prison camps, where, for the next two years, Zamperini underwent a whole new set of tortures. His is one of the most spectacular odysseys of this or any other war, and “odyssey” is the right word, for with its tempests and furies and monsters, many of them human, Zamperini’s saga is something out of Greek mythology.

That story encompasses an aspect of the American experience during World War II — the cruelty of the Japanese — that, in an era of Toyotas and Sonys and Hideki Matsui, has been almost entirely forgotten. (Forgotten in the United States, that is: Japanese sensitivities on the subject remain sufficiently high that Hillenbrand refuses to identify her translators there.) It’s also yet another testament to the courage and ingenuity of America’s Greatest Generation, along with its wonderful, irrepressible American-style irreverence: just hearing the nicknames — many unprintable here — that the P.O.W.’s bestowed on their guards makes you fall in love with these soldiers.

The author of “Seabiscuit” — the story of a very different, and far less important, kind of miracle — Hillenbrand is particularly well suited to tell this inspiring tale. Apart from a rocky beginning (when, seeming to lack confidence in her main character, she hypes him), she is intelligent and restrained, and wise enough to let the story unfold for itself. Her research is thorough, her writing (even on complicated, technical wartime topics) crystalline. “Unbroken” is gripping in an almost cinematic way. In only one sense does it disappoint, but it’s important: that is, in its portrait of the hero himself.

Zamperini grew up in Torrance, Calif., and thanks partly to a bout of juvenile delinquency — he became adept at breaking into homes, then fleeing the police — he developed into a world-class runner. He ran the 5,000 meters at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (even Hitler commented on him) and later, at the University of Southern California, flirted with a four-minute mile. His coach said the only runner who could beat him was — you guessed it — Seabiscuit. As war approached he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Stationed in Hawaii, he was the bombardier on a rickety B-24 called the Green Hornet when it went down over the Pacific while searching for a missing plane. Of the 11 men on board, only three — Zamperini; the pilot, Russell Allen Phillips; and the tail gunner, Francis McNamara — survived, clinging to a canvas-and-rubber raft left amid the wreckage.

Quickly facing starvation, the men saved themselves by eating unwary albatrosses that used the raft as a perch and, with Zamperini tying improvised hooks to his hands to create a claw, by catching an occasional fish. They cut up fabric from a second raft to protect themselves from the scorching equatorial sun. Storms slaked their desperate thirst. Throughout, sharks floated expectantly alongside and beneath them, rubbing their backs against the raft and, sometimes, lunging up into it. The men beat them off with oars and even managed to kill a couple — and eat their livers.

On their 33rd day at sea McNamara died. Others in similar straits had resorted to cannibalism; after Zamperini uttered some lines remembered from the movies, he and Phillips simply cast McNamara overboard. The two men passed the days, and maintained their sanity, by peppering each other with questions, cooking imaginary meals, singing “White Christmas.” On the 46th day they spotted land: the Marshall Islands. On the 47th they were picked up by Japanese sailors.

While only one in 100 Americans captured in Europe died, nearly one in three perished in Japanese captivity. But like John McCain a generation later, Zamperini had a special status: as a former Olympian, he was a valuable propaganda tool, too precious to kill. But his celebrity also made him very tempting to torture. First in the Pacific and later in Japan, he was subjected to an unrelenting regime of assaults: humiliation, starvation, medical experiments, slave labor and disease. A succession of sadistic guards topped by a psychopathic sadist named Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a k a the Bird, derived a special, almost orgiastic pleasure from beating him.

Looking skyward — where American bombers could be spotted with increasing frequency — the G.I.’s knew the war would soon end. But that was a mixed blessing: the Japanese had repeatedly vowed to kill all P.O.W.’s rather than hand them over, and surely would have if the Americans had invaded Japan. Zamperini and his fellow prisoners were effectively saved by Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Like many soldiers stateside, Zamperini had a difficult re-entry, troubled by alcoholism, flashbacks, nightmares and rage. But in the fall of 1949, he was converted to Christ by Billy Graham and, as Hillenbrand relates it, all his troubles instantaneously evaporated. Only then did his war end.

Zamperini joked to Hillenbrand that he’d be an easier subject for her than Seabiscuit because he could talk. But that also presents perils. Though his wartime experiences faded with time, talking about them was pretty much all Zamperini did for years. From more than a thousand retellings, in newspaper and radio interviews and in inspirational speeches — “This Is Your Life” even devoted an episode to him — his story had been sanded down, and while Hillenbrand ably assembles its component parts, she rarely gets beneath the surface. That Zamperini does not seem especially introspective and may have forgotten or repressed certain memories only compounds the problem.

On a number of small but dubious points she gives him a pass: Could a neighbor really have sewn back on a toe Zamperini severed during a childhood accident? Would a family so poor that it shot rabbits to feed the children also have owned a car? More seriously, she rarely forces him to reach. “Unbroken” offered her an unusual chance to study and dissect a man who had undergone extreme duress. But virtually everything about Zamperini is filtered through her capable yet rather denatured voice, and we don’t really hear him. So, while a startling narrative and an inspirational book of a rather traditional sort, “Unbroken” is also a wasted opportunity to break new psychological ground.

How could someone with such access — she interviewed Zamperini 75 times — fall short in this fashion? Hillenbrand may have gotten too close to Zamperini. Writing, even about heroes, must to some degree be an adversarial process.

At the same time, paradoxically, she may not have gotten close enough. As she acknowledges, because of illness (she suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome) Hillen­brand is largely confined to her home. Judging from her citations, she spoke to Zamperini almost entirely by phone, and as any reporter will tell you, it just ain’t the same. That said, to have written something so ambitious and powerful under such trying circumstances is an act of courage even a Louis Zamperini would admire.

A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

By Laura Hillenbrand

Illustrated. 473 pp. Random House. $27

A review on Nov. 21 about Laura Hillenbrand’s “Unbroken,” an account of the Olympic runner Louis Zamperini’s experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II, erroneously included one company among a group of Japanese corporations and people that are familiar today. Samsung is South Korean.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at [email protected] . Learn more

David Margolick’s latest book, “Elizabeth and Hazel,” about a famous photograph from the Little Rock crisis of 1957, will be published next year.

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Books: A true story

Book reviews and some (mostly funny) true stories of my life.

Book Review: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

December 8, 2015 By Jessica Filed Under: Book Review 5 Comments

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in  Seabiscuit . Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity,  Unbroken  is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

Short and Sweet Version

Laura Hillenbrand knows how to write a non-fiction memoir that is just as compelling as the best fiction out there.  Skip the movie and read Unbroken.   This amazing memoir is about the Pacific front of World War II against Japan that most people don’t know very much about.

Jessica Thinks Too Much Version

Mild spoilers ahead this spoiler warning is for those very sensitive to any spoilers.  major spoilers look like this >  view spoiler » and then everyone dies why did you click this link if you haven’t read the book just kidding. anything about the ending will be hidden in links like this. « hide spoiler.

Apparently I have this idea in my head that memoirs are written about perfect people who were born with more strength than the rest of us losers .  Maybe that’s true of other memoirs, but it wasn’t true of Unbroken .  This memoir doesn’t idolize him.

Unbroken was upfront and honest about Louie’s faults, especially about him being a troublemaker as a child.  His older brother Pete saw potential in him.  Instead of seeing a troublemaker, Pete saw a competitive boy who wanted attention.  It was a reminder to me to look for the good in my kids.  This morning my oldest son was bossing around his younger brother.  Instead of reminding him (again) that he’s not in charge of his brother, I saw a young boy who wanted more responsibility.  Sometimes all it takes is seeing your weaknesses as strengths.  When Louie starts to see that the “bad” qualities he had as a child could help him survive, I was touched.

From earliest childhood, Louie had regarded every limitation placed on him as a challenge to his wits, his resourcefulness, and his determination to rebel. The result had been a mutinous youth. As maddening as his exploits had been for his parents and his town, Louie’s success in carrying them off had given him the conviction that he could think his way around any boundary. Now, as he was cast into extremity, despair and death became the focus of his defiance. The same attributes that had made him the boy terror of Torrance were keeping him alive in the greatest struggle of his life. -Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (p. 148). 

I was floored by how many things Louie survives.  Just one of his life events would be enough to turn into an inspiring memoir.  Louie survived a plane crash, was lost at sea and almost starved to death (they had food but one guy ate it all), were attacked by sharks while repairing their rubber raft that had holes in it because they were shot at by enemy planes, was a soldier in World War II, and became a prisoner of war with concentration camp conditions in Japan.

When Louie and some of the men at the POW camp were trying to escape, the plan involved going across the sea in a small motor boat.  Louie didn’t see that as a problem at all compared to drifting 2000 miles in the open ocean with no food.  If nothing else, it reminded me that trials can help you say “I’ve had worse.”

I was surprised how long the story went on after Louie came home from the POW camp.  It didn’t paint this happily ever after picture.  It talked realistically about the physical and emotional scars that Louie and other POW prisoners had the rest of their lives.   Louie was rescued physically but the story continued until he was free emotionally as well.

When Laura Hillenbrand first interviewed Louie about his story, the thing that drove her to write this book was to find out how someone could forgive such horrific abuse.  Forgiveness is what Unbroken is about.  And that’s why the movie sucks because it skims over the forgiveness part of the story.   Oh and the fact that the climax in the movie is anti-climatic because even though Louie holds that beam over his head forever the guards beat him with a stick anyway (which does not happen in the book).  LET HIM WIN OH MY GOSH. But that’s another post.

The reason Laura Hillenbrand writes such compelling non-fiction is because she knows what NOT to put into her book.   I can tell that Laura’s research could easily be thousands of pages long and she has a gift for knowing what to leave out.  (This is a gift I need.  I feel the need to put every single thought in my book reviews.)

Laura’s selectiveness shines the most for me in her characterization.  She gives you one characteristic about each character that is easy to remember and then doesn’t info dump all the other details about the character.  It made it so I could say “Oh that’s the guy with the girlfriend at home.”  Of course there’s more to the characters than that.  As we got to know them through the book, I could attach the new things I learned to that one interesting characteristic so I could keep them all straight.

Another thing that Laura Hillenbrand is beyond talented at is giving the reader a sense of the time period. I loved how she tied all the famous events of the time together with the flight of the Zeppelin.  Unbroken helped me learn history by seeing how the world and times affected one person.  Laura describes her own writing process better than I could.

You can’t truly understand an individual unless you understand the world he or she inhabits, and in illustrating that individual’s world, you will, hopefully, capture history in the accessible, tactile, authentic way in which the times were actually experienced. In Unbroken as in Seabiscuit , I tried to paint portraits not just of individuals, but of their times. -Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Reading Guide)

It wasn’t until reading Unbroken that I realized non-fiction can do something amazing that fiction can’t.  Non-fiction can tell you details that people inside the story don’t know.  This doesn’t work in fiction because we think the characters are dumb if they don’t know things that we do.  But it totally worked in Unbroken because they weren’t dumb – they just couldn’t see everything like we can from this vantage point of looking at these events as the past.

I never realized how little I knew about the Pacific side of World War II until Laura Hillenbrand pointed it out in the interview at the end of the book.

I’m troubled by the fact that when World War II is taught in schools, the lessons focus almost entirely on the European war. -Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Reading Guide)

Do you agree with the author’s statement that in the US people hardly learn anything about the pacific side of the war?

I totally agree.  I’m so grateful that Laura wrote this book to help me understand the events surrounding that side of WWII.  All I remember learning in school was that the US dropped the atomic bomb and the war was over.  The saying about winning the war in the Pacific “one damned island after another (page 65)” made me see how hopeless the war must have been.  I was shocked at the statistics that more people died in airplane accidents than in actual combat.  I’m so glad that I learned in such a fascinating way about this important time in history.

This post contains affiliate links and I receive a small percentage of sales made through these links. 

About Laura Hillenbrand

Laura Hillenbrand (born 1967) is the author of the acclaimed Seabiscuit: An American Legend, a non-fiction account of the career of the great racehorse Seabiscuit, for which she won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2001. The book later became the basis of the 2003 movie Seabiscuit. Her essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Equus magazine, American Heritage, The Blood-Horse, Thoroughbred Times, The Backstretch, Turf and Sport Digest, and many other publications. Her 1998 American Heritage article on the horse Seabiscuit won the Eclipse Award for Magazine Writing.

Born in Fairfax, Virginia, Hillenbrand studied at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, but was forced to leave before graduation when she contracted chronic fatigue syndrome, which she has struggled with ever since. She now lives in Washington, D.C.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• eBook Challenge 2015
• TBR Pile 2015

December 8, 2015 at 2:46 pm

I never finished this one. I keep telling myself I’ll get back to it but, honestly, I don’t think I will. 🙁

December 9, 2015 at 12:25 am

I loved this book. I’m fascinated with WWII but this was a side that I never really read too much on – the war in the South Pacific. His story just blew me away. I actually kind of liked the movie, insomuch as that there was SO MUCH in the book, I was wondering how they would fit it all into a movie. At least the got The Bird right on – what a creepy individual. But yeah, they missed a lot of important info. Rebecca @ The Portsmouth Review Follow me on Bloglovin’

December 9, 2015 at 12:41 pm

Great review! I agree with everything you said! I LOVED this book! I watched the movie after finishing, and I was sad they didn’t show the after war stuff. Those parts really moved me. Great book!

December 9, 2015 at 5:53 pm

This blog is so cool. I don’t know any other book blogger who reads as diverse a selection of books as you do! This one doesn’t sound like quite my cup of tea…I’ve read enough World War II nonfiction stories to last a lifetime.

December 13, 2015 at 12:53 pm

I started this one, wasn’t in the mood then watched the movie instead. Now I have to go back and finish it. Great review.

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Laura Hillenbrand

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Unbroken: Introduction

Unbroken: plot summary, unbroken: detailed summary & analysis, unbroken: themes, unbroken: quotes, unbroken: characters, unbroken: symbols, unbroken: theme wheel, brief biography of laura hillenbrand.

Historical Context of Unbroken

Other books related to unbroken.

• Full Title: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
• When Written: 2003-2010
• Where Written: Washington D.C.
• When Published: 2010
• Literary Period: Contemporary Narrative Journalism
• Genre: Historical nonfiction
• Setting: The United States and Japan; before, during, and after World War II
• Climax: When Louie Zamperini finds redemption at a Christian revival meeting
• Antagonist: Mutsuhiro “The Bird” Watanabe
• Point of View: Limited third-person

Extra Credit for Unbroken

Success on the Silver Screen: Angelina Jolie produced and directed the 2014 film adaptation of Unbroken . Grossing over 160 million dollars, Unbroken had the fourth highest box-office debut among WWII themed movie.

eBay and Adversity: Unable to leave her house because of her medical condition, Laura Hillenbrand conducted all the reporting and research for the novel from her home. This made even the simplest tasks a challenge. For example, instead of going to library to look at microfilms of old newspapers, Hillenbrand had to find and procure vintage newspapers on eBay.

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Unbroken: a Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

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Published: Jul 30, 2019

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