Laura Hillenbrands Unbroken tells the life story of Louis Louie Zamperini, an

Olympic runner and military aviator in World War II (WWII). He survived being
lost at sea and years of horrific abuse as a prisoner of war (POW) in Japan.
The book contains 5 parts

Part I: Louies Youth and Young Adulthood in

Torrance, California
Chapters 15 introduce an average boy who would become a remarkable man.
Born in 1917, Louie Zamperini was the child of Italian immigrants. Growing up
in Torrance amidst poverty and anti-Italian bias, Louie got in the habit of
running outside the law. He started smoking when he was 5 years old and
drinking when he was 8. He stole anything he wantedmostly food, money,
and whatever else he could find. He ran small scams and vandalized property.
Pete, Louies older brother, became concerned.Seeing Louies talent for running
away after a crime, Pete forced Louie to join the track-and-field team at school.
Louie excelled and soon gave up his delinquent exploits in favor of running
circles around a track. Nicknamed the Torrance Tornado, he became a high
school phenomenon and eventually earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
He competed alongside Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics in Germany and
planned to compete again in the 1940 Olympics scheduled for Tokyo, Japan.
However, when WWII started, Louie found himself training to be a bombardier
in the Army Air Corps of the United States instead of training to be a track star.

Part II: Louies Military Career as a Bombardier

Chapters 611 relate the beginnings of Louies WWII career in the American
military. In September 1941, Louie was drafted and eventually assigned to the
Army Air Corps. He trained as a bombardier, flying in the clunky but powerful B-
24 Liberator planes. Stationed in Oahu, Hawaii, Louie and his crewmates joined
in the fight against Japan that was taking place all across the Pacific Ocean
(referred to as the Pacific Theatre).
At first, Louie and his crew passed idle days waiting for battle. Then, on
December 23, 1942, they took part in the bombing of a Japanese base on the
island of Wake Atoll. The mission was successful. Over the next few weeks,
Louie watched the machinations of war take the lives of other Air Corpsmen,
sometimes through battle, sometimes through mechanical failures. He and his
crewmates made other dangerous bombing raids over Pacific islands. Japanese
bombers also attacked an American base on an island where he was stationed.
Yet through it all, Louie survived. Then one peaceful day, Louie and his crew
were called to complete a search and rescue mission. Mechanical failure struck;
Louies plane crashed somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Part III: Louies Harrowing Experience as an
Ocean Castaway
Chapters 1217 describe the days that Louie spent adrift, trying to survive in
the vast Pacific Ocean. When his B-24 bomber crashed into the sea on May 27,
1943, only three men survived: Louie, his pilot Russell Allen Phil Phillips, and
tail gunner Francis Mac McNamara. Over the next 46 days, they struggled to
survive in two small, inflatable rafts while drifting across miles and miles of
water.
Their first setback came the first night: Mac, in a fit of panic, ate all of the
nutritional chocolate squares meant to keep the three men alive for days.
Almost immediately, they were out of food and starving to death. Next they
faced the blistering heat of day and the shivering cold of night. As the men
grew weaker and weaker, schools of sharks regularly stalked them beside their
rafts. At one point, after theyd drifted into Japanese waters, a Japanese war
plane strafed them with bullets, trying repeatedly to kill them. Mac eventually
succumbed to deprivation and illness and was buried at sea. Louie and Phil
survived. At last they spotted land, only to find it overrun with Japanese troops.
On July 13, 1943, Louie and Phil were taken captive on Kwajalein Island.

Part IV: Louies Traumatic Years as a Prisoner

of War
Chapters 1833 comprise the bulk of Hillenbrands biography and deal
specifically with the harsh years Louie Zamperini spent in various POW camps
in Japanese territories. On Kwajalein Island, Louie was imprisoned in a solitary,
dirty, wooden cell infested with maggots, flies, and mosquitoes. He was
deprived of food, water, and medical care. He was also beaten, interrogated,
and routinely humiliatedall a foretaste of what his life would be like over the
next two years.
Louie was transferred among POW camps, but his time spent under the sadistic
Corporal (later Sergeant) Mutsuhiro Watanabe was the worst. Nicknamed The
Bird, this Japanese guard was Louies personal tormentor at both the Omori
and Naoetsu POW camps on mainland Japan. He beat Louie daily, sometimes
with his fists, sometimes with his belt, often with his kendo stick. The Bird
starved Louie and all of the prisoners. He practiced ritual humiliation on Louie
and the others, even making them lay face-down in human excrement. And he
used Louie and the others as slave labor for Japans war machine. When the
Allies defeated Japan, The Bird disappeared, hiding to avoid punishment as a
war criminal.
Part V: Louies Life in Freedom after WWII
Chapters 3439 sum up Louies experiences back in the United States following
Americas victory in WWII. After Louie was freed from captivity in Japan, he
returned to California and tried to resume his life. He met and married Cynthia
Applewhite, a young girl from a privileged upbringing. He fell into alcoholism
and wrestled with untreated PTSD. He struggled financially. He had near-
constant nightmares about his time as a POW, waking once to find himself
strangling his pregnant wife because he had dreamed she was The Bird. His
marriage collapsed. In September 1949, Cynthia convinced Louie to attend a
Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles. Louie resisted, but he wentand went
again. Finally Louie responded to Grahams preaching and committed himself
to Jesus. His life changed completely. Louie quit drinking, reconciled with his
wife, and began the process of forgiving his captors. He dedicated his life to
nonprofit work helping at-risk boys and, by all accounts, lived relatively happily
for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, in Japan, The Bird escaped punishment by staying hidden for
several years, until all war criminals were pardoned as part of post-war efforts
by the United States. Mutsuhiro Watanabe lived a long life, married, had two
children, made a fortune running an insurance agency in Tokyo, and kept a
vacation home on Australias Gold Coast.