Louis Zamperini, born Italian, is an Olympic Track Athlete who served in the military during WWII. Louis Zamperini has been featured in the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Louis' intense story begins in the 1936 Olympics, where he met Adolf Hitler. Louis was set to go to the 1940 Olympics, but was however rerouted by World War 2. Louis enlisted in the US army and was assigned to become a bombardier on B-24 Liberator. He and his crew were part of the attack on Wake Island. When the army lost a couple of planes, they sent Louis and his crew to find the missing men, however their plane was shot down and the only survivors Louis and two other mates stayed adrift for more than a month with not much more than an raw albatross for food and nothing to drink. Soon Louis' raft was found by a Japanese boat and given to Japanese authorities. Only Louis and the pilot managed to stay alive while they were adrift in the ocean. Louis traveled all through Japan and stayed in many of Japan's containment camps. The officers beat and wounded many of the POW (prisoners of war) and did little to help the prisoners survive. It was not until two years later when the United Stated sent planes into Japan and dropped Little Boy and Fat-man on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States prisoners of war were released by the Japanese government. Louis witnessed the damage of the Atomic Bombs on the Japanese cities and once he returned to America, he realized he had developed a case of shock and nightmares. Louis later became religiously affiliated with Christianity after witnessing a sermon by Billy Graham which helped him get through his stage of depression. After WWII, Louis eventually went back to Japan and met up with his previous officials of the containment camps where they apologized. Louis Zamperini's life ended on July 2nd 2014, having gone through everything, Louis was lucky to be able to survive till 97 years old.
Unbroken (book)
http://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-louis-zamperini
http://www.biography.com/people/louis-zamperini
What impact do you think people like Zamperini have had on history? Meaning that they weren't considered to be very important back during their time periods. They are clearly more known for the experiences they went through, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If anything, it only gives us more perspective on how certain events played out, as well as captures the realistic emotions of the people involved in the war.
ReplyDelete