Louis Zamperini

Unbroken

Laura Hillenbrand 2010

Beaverton Lib 940.5472 HIL

• Unbroken (film)

• USAAF Pilot Louis Zamperini , Japanese POW Camps

• scrambled timeline preface
• xvii preface 1943/6/23 raft in Pacific, 27 days after crash
• xviii strafed by Japanese bomber

• 003 1929/8/26 12yo LZ childhood home Torrance CA, Graf Zeppelin overhead at night

• 005 LZ born 1917/1/26 in Olean NY f. Anthony railway electrician, m. Louise

• 005-007 hellion, scared of airplane flights 008 older brother Pete, younger sisters Silvia and Virginia
• 013 1931 Louis steals tickets, brother Pete convinces school principal to let Louis run track, Pete coached him
• 015 Louis surrenders to Pete, seriously runs, 016 builds lungs, 225 seconds underwater
• 017 swivelling hips, seven foot stride, 1933 high school class president, wins races, breaks records
• 018 wins 1933 UCLA Cross Country two-mile race by more than a quarter mile
• 020 1934 National high school 4:21.3 mile, beating 4.23.6 record, broken by Bob Seaman in 1953
• 025 Wins 1936 Olympic trials 5000 meter race in New York, overeats on ship
• 034 7th in race, 14:46.8, fastest American 5000 in 1936, fastest last lap ever 56 seconds
• 035 Hitler says (translated) "Ah, you're the boy with the fast finish"
• 036 Steals chancellery flag, allowed to keep it
• 040 USC, Jimmy Sazaki p46 Japanese spy
• 041 June 1938, NCAA championship, attacked and boxed by other runners, still wins mile with 4:08.3, NCAA record until 1973
• 044 1940 Olympics Japan host withdraws, Finland alternate attacked, leaves USC a few credits short, welder at Lockheed
• 044 early 1941 joins Army Air Corps, washes out, joins army again September 29
• 052 Japan attacks Wake Island air base Dec 11, lose two destroyers and 1153 men, Americans lose 52, 98 captured Dec 23

• 053 kludge bombsight and an $8000 Norden bombsight

• 054 Louis visits home, then to Ephrata (WA) Army Airfield

  • 055 pilot Russell Allen Phillips "Phil" Indiana, Purdue U

  • 058 Top turret gunner & engineer Stanley Pillsbury, Maine

  • 058 Waist gunner & engineer Clarence Douglas, Virginia

  • 058 Nose gunner & navigator Robert Mitchell, Illinois

  • 058 Belly gunner & radioman Frank Glassman, Chicago

  • 058 Tail gunner Ray Lambert, Maryland

  • 058 Waist gunner & radioman Harry Brooks, Michigan

  • 058 Co-pilot George Moznette

• 059 372nd Bomb Squadron 307th Bomb Group Seventh Air Force, B-24D

• 059 no steering, taxi with engine power and brakes, Flying Coffin

• 61 Army Air Force AAF 52,651 stateside accidents, 14,903 personnel killed, mostly trainees

• 65 November 1942 372nd flies to Hickam Field Oahu, crew names plane Super Man (184 D model upgraded to E)

• 68 aerial gunning 3x squadron average, Louie bomb scores outstanding, target dead center 7/9 times
• 68 10h/day boring sea patrol
• 72 Deploy to Midway, December 23, 1942 attack Wake
• 76 Admiral Chester Nimitz presents Distinguished Flying Crosses to pilots, Air Medals to crewmen
• 80 WWII, 35,933 AAF planes lost to combat and (mostly) accidents, 70% KIA from operational accidents, not enemy action
• 82 fuel leaks and cigarettes blow up planes
• 84 Tour of duty 40 combat missions, 50% survived that long
• 85 B-24 High wing and protruding bomb bay doors, broke up in 2/3 of ditchings, sharks arrive quickly, rescue unlikely
• 87 mid 1994, better-provisioned rafts with radios, but 1945 Jan only 13% of downed airmen rescued
• 87 half of Catalina flying boats crash hitting the ocean, for every man rescued, several rescuers die

• 91 Canton Island, "one tree", 7000x150 foot runway, Kiribati

• 95 bombed Nauru, shot down all the Zeros

• 103 Super Man shot up, lands at Funafuti, 594 holes, Harry Brooks dies

• 106 Japanese air raid, planes destroyed, church evacuated before destruction

• 112 New crew for Louie and Phil; tail gunner Francis McNamara "Mac"

• 116 Crew flies Green Hornet, search and rescue mission 225 miles north of Palmyra, engine fail, wrong engine feathered
• 119 crash, sinking with plane, Mae West works, surfaces
• 125 inflated raft, probably released by engineer before death
• 126 Louie barely catches raft, paddles to catch second raft, then pick up Phil and tail gunner Mac

• 127 Ration D bars , rafts grossly underprovisioned

• 129 Sharks around raft
• 132 Mac ate all the chocolate, plane overhead
• 133 plane high overhead, flare gun and dye no response, probably drifting west
• 134 May 30 search 42nd squadron B-24 Daisy Mae overhead, drifting west towards Marshalls and Gilberts, Japanese held
  • approximately 160 east near equator?
• 138 "missing" telegrams 139 Louis Z. loss headline news in California
• 143 catch albatross, use as fishing bait Sharks take some of the hooks
• 145 Phil and Louis reminisce and quiz each other to stay sane .. eventually, home recipes
• 149 Phil prays, Louis learns to. 151 Louis ties hooks to fingers, catches fish by hand
• 153 Japanese bomber strafes rafts, time of day suggested their location
• 157 hole patch kit sandpaper - glue and sand washed off
• 161 Mac clubbed a shark, reclaimed his sanity
• 162 Louis grabs 4 foot shark by tail, kills it with screwdriver through eyes, liver edible, they eat it
• 163 Great white shark .165 Mac dies on 33rd day .167 memories of early life
• 167 40th day, Louis vision of 21 singers in a cloud
• 168 46th day, see islands
• 171 Capture by Japanese patrol boat 172 first food in 8 days
• 172 Kindly doctor .173 each man had lost half his body weight
• 174 Freighter takes them to Kwajalein July 16 expecting execution
• 180 Kwajelein native says all POWs were executed
• 185 Christian guard Kawamura gives Louie and Phil candy
• 188 Interrogated for base locations, Louie identified the fakes, sent to Japan August 26 1943

• 191 Arrives Yokahama, taken to Ofuna and Jimmie Sasaki, head interrogator for all POWs in Japan

• 196 most brutal Sueharu Kitamura
• 198 kill-all rule, POWs killed to prevent Allied recapture

• 202 William Harris Pappy Boyington

• 206 Japanese civilian camp cook steals food
• 214 1943/10/06 Louie's army trunk delivered to parents
• 215 1944 Feb? US captures Kwajalein, find LOUIS ZAMPERINI graffiti

• 218 Green Hornet crewmen mothers correspond

• 222 Saipan taken, B-29 range to Japan

• 223 Distant air raid sirens

• 229 1944/09/30 transferred to Ōmori POW camp

• 233 Mutsuhiro Watanabe the Bird

• 241 officers assigned to empty latrines
• 242 while guards distracted, POWs remove track pins and tipped over train
• 243 POWs stole sugar fish booze
• 246 1944/10/18 Louie's whereabouts on Japanese radio, reaches Torrance 1945/01
• 249 1944/11/01 B-29 from Saipan to Japan, photographs Tokyo

• 253 Louie broadcasts Postman Calls Radio Tokyo 1944 Nov 18 transcript p256

• 261 Louie refuses to broadcast propaganda
• 261 1944/11/29-30 81 bombers, 2773 Tokyo industrial structures burned
• 264 Bird manic 265 Phil in Zentsuji camp

• 269 Prince Yoshitomo Tokugawa tours Omori, has Bird transferred

• 273 Palawan Philippines prisoner massacre 1944/12/15

• 274 Carrier aircraft attacks, by 1945/02/17 aircraft works badly hit, >500 Japanese planes lost, 80 US planes lost

• 275 Transfer to Naoetsu camp 4B, where Bird was

• 285 Louie steals 10 pounds of rice in his pants
• 285 friend teaches guard to answer "How are you" with "What the fuck do you care"
• 289 POW physicians infect Bird with dysentery
• 293 civilian says all Naoetsu prisoners would be killed on August 22
• 298 prepare to murder Bird
• 299 August 6 Hiroshima .301 August 9 Nagasaki
• 303 August 15 guards disappear .306 August 20 aircraft signals end of war .308 Bird vanishes
• 313 Food drops .316 Enormous box of cocoa obliterates Bird's office .318 Sept 5 train to Yokohama

• 320 Yokohama: Red Cross nurses, reporter Robert Trumbull interviews Louie, who hoards K rations

• 324 Los Angeles Times, Trumbull headline story ZAMPERINI COMES BACK FROM DEAD

• 326 Okinawa to Laoag to Manila to Kwajalein to Honolulu

• 335 Bird flees .338 Louie drinks heaviliy .339 meets Cynthia Applewhite
• 346 former Pacific POWS die four time expected rate for two postwar years.85% PTSD
• 351 running training, clocks 4:18 miles, fastest 2 mile run, badly damaged ankle
• 355 Watanabe hiding in Nagano village as Saburi Ohta .357 Jimmie Sasaki sentenced 6 years hard labor
• 362-367 Louie unravels, p372 attends Billy Graham tent revival

• 373 remembers raft promise If you will save me, I will serve you forever

• 376 For the first time in five years, the Bird hadn't come into his dreams.
• 380 the war is over, Louie forgives former guards imprisoned at Sugamo
• 383 Louie cares torch before 5 Olympic games
• 385 Allen Phillips and wife Cecy teach at La Porte Indiana junior high, died in 1998
• 393 All Japanese war criminals granted amnesty in 1958
• 397 unrepentant Watanabe died April 2003

Zamperini helped Hillenbrand for 7 years, died in 2014 age 97, 3 years after publication

Devil at my Heels

Louis Zamperini and David Rensin, 2003

940.5472 ZAMPERINI, West Slope Library

Map: Louis Zamperini's Wartime Journey

• (map 1) Oahu home base
• (map 2) Midway Islands 1942/12 base
• (map 3) Wake Island 1942/12 raid
• (map 4) Funafuti Atoll 1942/04 base
• (map 5) Nauru 1942/04 raid (fertilizer)
• (map 6) Crash site near Palmyra atoll, 1943 May 27
• (map 7) drifted 1900 miles, "rescued" by Japanese, taken to Wotje Atoll in Marshalls 1943 July 13

• (map 8) Transferred to Tom Wade Prisoner of the JapaneseKwajalein Atoll 1943 July 15

• (map 9) Truk Island 1943 August 25
• (map 10) Yokohama 1943 September 13, Ofuna secret interrogation camp
• (map 11) Omori prison 1944 September 30
• (map 12) Naoetsu camp 4B 1945 March 1
• (map 13) Yokohama, Okinawa September 6
• (map 14) Manila, Oahu, San Francisco 1945 October 2, Long Beach 1945 October 19

• 002 father Anthony Zamperini born 1889 came from Verona Italy grew up on Lake Garda, immigrated at 13

• 002 mother Louise Dossi Austrian/Italian born Dagus Mines, Elk County, Pennsylvania 4 feb 1898
• 002 Louis born 1917 Jan 26 (brother Pete born 1915 May 24)
• 003 house fire Long Beach,

Redondo Beach salt water swimming pool subsequent dechlorination

• 004 father bench machinist Pacific Electric Railway Big Red Cars

• 005 House on 2028 Gramercy Avenue ("street") in Torrance

• 006 smoked, sold "slightly used" tobacco for "half price" 5 cents per Prince Albert can ( $0.88 2023 inflation )
• 011 Nativity? Catholic church 8 blocks away
• 015 night in a boxcar, watches sleeping bum fall onto tracks and cut in two
• 018 first competitive run, "Come on Louie" from classmates stimulates third place, continued to train and run
• 021 train escapade, returned home, told Pete "You win. I'm going all out to be a runner"
• 022 wins UCLA cross country race, broke course records, still most thrilling race he ever won
• 024 Riddell leather running shoes, 3x heavier than modern shoes, won 1320 with 3:17 state record
• 024 Pete: "Isn't one minute of pain worth a lifetime of glory?"
• 026 dates, recognition, junior-class president . . .027 ran 4:28 and 4:29 miles
• 029 ran 4.21.2, broke 18 year World Interscholastic Mile record, record would stand for another 20 years
• 029 Senior student body president 031 races 5000 meter, collided with misdirected runner, lost first race in 3.5 years
• 031 Olympic tryouts Randalls Island 033 shares first place for 5000 meter, makes Olympic team

• 034 SS Manhattan, second class. "must have gained ten pounds" on superb food

• 036 mentions Eleanor Holm and Jim Thorpe losing amateur status

• 039 qualified for 5000m, though seriously overweight 040 final quarter mile 56 seconds
• 040 Goebbels "Hitler wants to see you", Hitler "Ah, you're the boy with the fast finish"

• 042 stole Nazi flag from Chancellery perimeter wall, questioned by Von Fritsch, given flag

• 043 banquet, necking with German girls, "Please take us to America!"
• 043 London for British Olympic Games, billeted in slum, protested, moved to Grosvenor with Olympic Committee

• 045 USC 1936 Sept . 047 trained doctor-discouraged "agony runs" , coach Dean Cromwell

• 048 watched Count of Monte Cristo with Robert Donat (1934) ... not available
• 049 East Coast runners spike Zamp, still won mile with 4:08.3 national collegiate record, but might have broke 4 min
• 050 friend James Sazaki at USC (previously Harvard, Princeton, Yale)
• 051 quit school on Friday, race on weekend, re-register Monday to keep scholarship
• 052 1940 pleurisy, Manchuria invasion, Tokyo Olympics cancelled

• 054 Army Air Corps, Hancock College of Astronautics

• 056 back to Torrance, $7/day movie extra, flunked physical with sugar, finished movie, joined army 1941 Sep 29
• 057 bombardier school Ellington Field Houston
• 058 Japanese bombardment of tidewater field 1943 Feb 23, no damage, but first US mainland attack since 1912

• 059 graduates 1942 August 13, set to Hickam on Oahu as 2nd Lt., Kahuku Air Base on Oahu north shore

• 059 B-24 bombing unit 42nd squadron 11th Bombardment Group 7th Air Force; 6000 sorties by 11th during war

• 060 Gooney birds clumsy fliers, nickname for C-47 Skytrain

• 061 Wake Island "five thousand miles one way" ... no, 2300 miles one way. 1600h to 0005h at Wake, returned 0800 (290 mph)
• 065 table of 9 planes lost since arriving, only one from enemy action
• 066 gremlins - imaginary elflike creatures that supposedly trouble warplanes
• 068 pleurisy gone, back to running, 4:12
• 070 fighting while wounded, as if saying "You can hit me, but you can't make me cry"
• 074 brakes gone, landed with parachutes as air brakes
• 077 Japanese attack on Funafuti
• 078 Will and Ariel Durant: "Most history is guessing, the rest is prejudice"

• 082 May 27 1943 "musher" aircraft Green Hornet

• 084 engine fails, inexperienced new engineer feathers wrong engine on same side, crash into sea 2 minutes later
• 087 some life jacket inflation cartridges stolen for soda water with Scotch, Z's weren't
• 088 LZ catches raft, rescues Phil and Mac
• 090 no knife in the patch kits. 6 chocolate bars and 8 half-pint water tins.
• 091 200 miles 90 minutes north of Palmyra, 800 miles south of Hawaii
• 092 LZ survival unlikely, prayed to thank God 093 Mac eats all the chocolate
• 095 fires flare at searching B-24, not seen 096 drifted west of air lanes, no quick rescue
• 098 caught rainwater in 6x24 inch canvas pump cover ... prayed a lot
• 099 '...I promise if I get home through all this and whatever is to come, I'll serve You for the rest of my life."
• 099 rain squall an hour later. Waves throw small fish into raft, used as bait for larger fish
• 100 Mac helps LZ ward off shark with second oar
• 102 capture 4 foot shark, only liver edible. Also albatrosses, first discarded, ate second with difficulty, third with gusto
• 103 gray tern, with lice 104 make believe meals
• 105 proof is (fictional?) Robinson Crusoe(??) Phil's dad preacher, led LZ and Mac singing church songs
• 106 despair only during storms with 30 foot waves ... no diseases to catch in mid-ocea n

• 109 imagined meals, Tiramisu italian desert

• 109 signaled plane overhead, but Japanese Sally bomber, machine guns punctured raft, dropped dud depth charge
• 110 30 minutes of strafing, depth charge dud
• 111 abrade away canvas over raft rubber for patching
• 112 bet on landing day in Marshall or Gilbert islands, 46th or 47th day 113 bumped by great white shark
• 114 after war marine biologist claims no great whites in tropics, but in 2002 shown to visit tropics
• 115 Mac dies after midnight 33rd day . . . storm with 45 foot waves
• 116 July 12 sees island, atoll lagoon ... actually two masted Japanese patrol ship

• 118 on board, raft turned to gum, ready to pop, Wotje two hours alter

• 119 landed at Kwajalein 120 dumped in separate cells, food leftovers from men's mess
• 121 cell formerly held captured Marines, 9 names carved on wall
• 122 native worker recognizes LZ, says 9 marines decapitated as directed by Vice Admiral Koso Abe
• 126 Christian guard Kawamura

• 127 dengue fever

• 128 day 143 shipped west to Truk, then Yokahama 1943 September 15
• 131 Ofuna camp, former USC classmate James Sasaki
• 133 "That's one reason the government relocated the Japanese to internment camps (perhaps) homes set on fire and lives lost"

• 133 fighting 442nd in Europe

• 138 after 3 months, Phil sent to south Honshu officer's camp, show camp for Red Cross

• 139 Spring 1944 Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington arrives next cell

  • Medic Kitamura "the Quack" removes shrapnel from Boyington's leg
  • 1958 autobiography Baa Baa, Black Sheep ( not available IA or local libraries )
• 140 Ofuna guards third rate dummies, good men on front lines
• 141 volunteer camp barber, earn rice ball for shave or haircut, guard "Weasle" didn't pay, eyebrows shaved like Marlene Dietrich

• 142 information relayed to chaplain Geoffrey Lempriere and Lt. Bill Harris w/ photographic memory.

• 148 (aside) ZLZ listed KIA Nov 1943, condolence letter June 1944
• 150 1944 September 30 marched to Omori camp / Tom Henling Wade, "Prisoner of the Japanese"
• 151 Sergeant Matsuhiro Watanabe "the Bird" 152 drill-friction fire 153 beating
  • 158 hated officers because he could not be one

• 155 American officer in charge Arthur L. Maher

• 163 1944 November 18 broadcast for "Japanese Postman" radio program

• 165 day after, Zamperini family interviewed by Cecil B. DeMille

• 171 50 prisoners put in uniform, race to food tables, filmed as "American marine cowards" running desperately
• 171 US air attack, "Above I could see Zero's exploding, popping like little firecrackers."
• 172 1945 March 1 Transfer to Camp 4-B Naoetsu on Aba River, two km from Sea of Japan
• 177 unload coal from ships
• 180 etc. many humiliating tasks
• 184 Scuttlebutt about allied invasion
• 185 War is over - then small airdrops of goodies
• 186 two weeks earlier, guard with tale of cholera quarantine in Hiroshima
• 186 1945 September 2 official Japan surrender, many supplies dropped into marked rice paddy nearby
• 187 two years later, LZ connects with airdrop pilot Byron W. Kinney. They met in person 1985 Nov 1
• 189 Left Naoetsu station 1945 Sep 5

• 192 Robert Trumbull of the New York Times

• 193 Okinawa, but not on POW list, eventually general connects LZ to Dr. Eli Lippman
• 195 connects to Eleventh Bomb Group on Okinawa, and then nurses
• 197 delayed going home (nurses!) then Manila (200, delayed) then Kwajelein on the way to Honolulu (party!)

• 197 Small red pamphlet Coming Home for distribution to AAF returnees

  • "Good? Bad? Mixed Up? Or Can't You Tell"
• 202 1945 October 2 San Francisco Letterman Hospital for week of observation, now up to 160 pounds (flab!)
• 204 flew from SF to Long Beach on special B-25 assigned by General Arnold
• 206 bottles of liquor in living room from friends for LZ to share when he got home
• 208 Birmingham Hospital in Van Nuys for a month of observation

• 209 Will Rogers Jr. radio show, other guest Ronald Reagan ("I was born for politics")

• 209 Torrance airstrip "Zamperini Memorial Field" and New York race "Zamperini Memorial Mile" deleted "Memorial"

• 210 Befriended by Oliver Hardy, unlimited tab at Lakeside Country Club

• 210 Did town with Phil (huh? Why wasn't he home in Indiana?), college friend Harry Read
• 213 pummelled drunk jerks dissing POWs

  • should have reread Coming Home pamphlet which described symptoms exactly

• 214 Zampirini Mile race the next day, full flight to New York
• 215 TWA owner Howard Hughes offers his own seat on the flight, LZ sat next to Frank Sinatra
• 216 Number 3 motor on Constellation leaking oil, fire risk, plane returns to Saint Louis

• 216 two weeks R&R in Miami

• 218 Met 19yo debutante Cynthia Applewhite (CA) 220 proposes
• 222 Married 1946 May 25 in Episcopal church of Cynthia's childhood
• 223 Honeymoon two weeks in wilderness on the Eel River near Red Bluff, alone
• 223 Severe housing shortage, stayed with Harry Read and his mother,

  • then room at Edgemont Manor near Vermont Ave and Hollywood Blvd

• 224 separated from AAF in August 1946(?), alcoholic blackouts, fight and make up
• 227 Training in Griffith Park, first (1/4 mile) lap in 68 seconds, second lap 2:17, sharp pain
• 228 drinking, brooding, resentment
• 229 Seeking fast money, buys 30 Quonset huts and sells them to movie studios

• 230 purchased hold-for-shipment D8 Caterpillars in Philippines for $7000, seller absconded

• 231 Cynthia pregnant, worries, LZ turns to prayer, secretly so she doesn't worry
• 232 More get rich quick stuff
• 233 1949 Jan 7 Cynthia Battle Zamperini
• 234-6 more fights, Cynthia wants divorce
• 237 1949 Sep new neighbor invites her to Billy Graham tent meeting
• 238 "Billy Graham mentions science in Bible" says Cynthia, knew science fascinated LZ
• 239 BG read strictly from Scriptures, no holy roller
• 240 fear replaced anger, took Cynthia home
• 242 BG touched on many LZ doubts. LZ got up to walk out, struggled, then turned towards BG, away from exit
• 242 LZ taken to prayer room , prays for forgiveness, feels weightlessness and enveloping calm
• 243 returns to Cynthia; through with drinking, smoking, revenge
• 244 at home, trashes cigarettes, pours liquor down drain, except 300yo cognac returned to importer father-in-law
• 244 no more Bird nightmares
• 245 trial period self examination, elation to despair, start of struggle, applies for honest work
• 247 two high profile conversions same week, Hearst papers publicize Dr. Graham
• 250 Jesus freak pressure tactics gave Christianity a bad name. Too many die-hard fundies keeping score
• 251 World Vision's Bob Pierce "why no missionary teams going to Japan?"
• 255 Raised money, arrived in Japan with little, lived cheap. Standard talk 30 minutes
• 257 Waseda, 300 converts, Tokyo spoke to 18000 with 5000 outside, repeated program
• 257 Met mother of Japanese officer on Kwajalein who spared LZ's life, to broadcast from Tokyo

  • but why was Phil also spared?

• 259 Hiroshima burn victim says "honored this happened to me, to save millions of lives"
• 259 In Ofuma, James Sazaki said invasion would have killed 10% of 75M Japanese and half a million invaders
• 259 US Navy ensign gives LZ $250 and takes Hiroshima-melted souvenir rifle back to US for LZ

• 260 visits Ofuma, Omori 262 permission from MacArthur to visit Sugamo Prison

• 264 James Sasaki tells LZ he was hidden for a year and a month so US goverment would declare him dead, then LZ radio broadcasts would be surprising

• 265 Watanabe still missing, $25000 reward
• 268 speaks at church in Havana, young Fidel Castro did not like LZ comments about communism
• 268 Victory Boys Camp, downsized to 35 kids a week in the Sierras

• 271 1954 This is your life! 272 1955 Devil at my Heels for Dutton publishers

• 272 Movie offer; Dean Hess suggests extra contract to protect faith

• 273 wife Cynthia Applewhite's books

• 275 Climbed then skied down Wyoming's Gannett Glacier

• 276 CBS Draggan Mihailovich
• 277 Jimmy Sasaki was spy, powerful radio transmitter, left US by boat before FBI/CIA raid - BS, CIA founded 1947

• 278 Tom Wade Prisoner of the Japanese

• 283 Olympic torch run from Joetsu
• 286 Visits Kwajalein