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 L.Z. 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