{"id":2336,"date":"2012-12-26T06:31:27","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T11:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/?p=2336"},"modified":"2012-12-23T17:39:22","modified_gmt":"2012-12-23T22:39:22","slug":"louis-zamperini-the-unbroken-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/2012\/12\/26\/louis-zamperini-the-unbroken-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Zamperini: The Unbroken Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Human warfare brings out the worst in people. Prisoners of war, especially, can be at the receiving end of the most unimaginable brutality. During World War II, Second Lieutenant Louis Zamperini underwent horrific suffering after he survived a plane crash and was sent to several of the most brutal Japanese prison camps. Zamperini\u2019s story is told in bold, vivid detail in Laura Hillenbrand\u2019s book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption<\/em>, which was named Time Magazine\u2019s best book of the year in 2010.<\/p>\n

Zamperini\u2019s heroic odyssey began with a few successful missions as a bombardier in the Pacific theater in 1942 and 1943.\u00a0 In the spring of 1943, while on a routine mission searching for a lost plane, his own aircraft experienced mechanical trouble and plunged into the ocean about 850 miles west of Hawaii.\u00a0 He and two other men drifted for 46 days on a raft, heading west into Japanese-held waters.\u00a0 They suffered from thirst, starvation, violent storms, intense sunburn, menacing sharks, and strafing from a Japanese plane. \u00a0After floating 33 days, one of the three men died from starvation.<\/p>\n

As much as Zamperini suffered on the raft, he would later recall that it was far preferable to what awaited him after the Japanese captured him on the 47th<\/sup> day near the Marshall Islands.\u00a0 Already in an emaciated state from weeks on the raft, Zamperini was tortured and starved before being transferred to the notorious Ofuna Prisoner of War Camp, which was known for its egregious violations of the terms of the Geneva Convention.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>At the Ofuna camp, Zamperini performed slave labor under the watchful eye of Imperial Japanese Army Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe, perhaps the cruelest of all camp guards of World War II.<\/p>\n

The level of hostility directed toward the prisoners by Watanabe was staggering.\u00a0 He especially targeted Zamperini.\u00a0 Watanabe was prone to violent outbursts during which he beat the prisoners daily, starved them, made them perform humiliating acts, refused to treat their illnesses, and exposed them to bitter cold.\u00a0 Watanabe\u2019s level of barbarism was so great that after the war he was classified as a Class-A war criminal.\u00a0 The punishment heaped on Zamperini\u2019s mind and body at the hands of Watanabe was extraordinary.<\/p>\n

In one striking example of Watanabe’s sadism, Zamperini was once ordered to hold an extremely heavy wooden beam above his head.\u00a0 He could barely raise it. Watanabe told a guard to strike Zamperini in the face with a gun if he dropped the beam.\u00a0 No one expected Zamperini, in his weakened state, to hold it aloft for more than a few minutes.\u00a0 Watanabe waited for Zamperini’s quick and inevitable failure.\u00a0 Minutes ticked by.\u00a0 Then a half hour.\u00a0 Zamperini recalls the intense pain but also the fierce resolve not to let Watanabe defeat him.\u00a0 After 37 minutes elapsed, Watanabe grew so frustrated waiting that he charged Zamperini and slammed his fist into the prisoner’s stomach, sending them both toppling to the ground.\u00a0 Zamperini’s bold act of strength and defiance gave great inspiration to the throngs of POWs who witnessed the event.<\/p>\n

But these moments of triumph were few and far between.\u00a0 By August of 1945, Zamperini was near death, suffering from starvation, exhaustion, dysentery, and beriberi.\u00a0 The dropping of the atomic bombs and Japan\u2019s surrender soon thereafter saved Zamperini and other prisoners, all of them walking skeletons, who somehow managed to cling to life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Because Zamperini was presumed dead, the reunion with his family was especially poignant.\u00a0 He slowly regained his physical strength, but he suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder.\u00a0 Each night in his dreams, Zamperini was haunted by images of Watanabe beating him.\u00a0 Zamperini was agitated, depressed, and unemployed.\u00a0 To soothe his pain, he turned to alcohol and was consumed by revengeful thoughts of returning to Japan to murder Watanabe, the man who ruined his life.<\/p>\n

During this emotionally tumultuous period, Zamperini fell in love with a young woman named Cynthia Applewhite, and they married in 1946. Cynthia was aghast at the level of Zamperini\u2019s emotional pain.\u00a0 One day in 1948 she convinced him to attend a speech given by a young Reverend named Billy Graham.\u00a0 Zamperini was transfixed by Graham\u2019s message of forgiveness.\u00a0 He made a life-changing decision to turn his life over to God and to forgive his Japanese captors, even Watanabe.\u00a0 Zamperini traveled to Japan in 1950 to communicate his forgiveness to his former prison guards, now in prison.\u00a0 The trip went well, but unfortunately Watanabe was nowhere to be found.\u00a0 The cruelest of prison guards in all of World War II had somehow evaded capture.<\/p>\n

Zamperini\u2019s religious conversion helped him overcome his emotional scars and lead a happy, productive life.\u00a0 After enduring a plane crash, weeks without food and water on a raft, and appalling treatment at illegal prison camps, Zamperini found a way to survive and even thrive afterward.\u00a0 His military service to his country, by itself, made him a great hero.\u00a0 His remarkable resilience as a POW has made him an inspiration to millions.\u00a0 Today, at the age of 95, he still draws big crowds as a motivational speaker.\u00a0 In Laura Hillenbrand\u2019s words, Louis Zamperini is indeed a man unbroken<\/em> in mind, in body, and in spirit.<\/p>\n