Almost three quarters into Unbroken, the
book's subject, World War II airman Louis Zamperini, is transferred from one
Japanese POW camp, Omori, to another, called Naoetsu. When Laura Hillenbrand
writes, "Of the many hells that Louie had known in this war, this place
would be the worst," the effect is jarring. By this point in the narrative
Zamperini has already crashed into the Pacific, drifted on a life raft for 47
days surviving on little more than rainwater, been captured by the Japanese,
and been beaten and nearly starved at three previous camps. How much more can
he take?
Things do get worse at Naoetsu:
under the sadistic rule of Corporal Mutsuhiro Watanabe, called the Bird by
prisoners, Louie (as he's referred to throughout the book) is forced into slave
labor and falls gravely ill before the camp's liberation in August 1945. It is
Hillenbrand's great accomplishment that the heart of Unbroken, describing the more than two brutal years between Louie's
crash and his unlikely return home, is not an exhausting catalog of misery but
a suspenseful and at times uplifting testament to human survival. And just as
Hillenbrand's previous book, Seabiscuit, was
about more than a horse, so Unbroken
ends up being about more than the punishing wartime experiences of one man.
Louis Zamperini, son of Italian
immigrants, was born in 1917 and grew up in Torrance, California. According to
Hillenbrand, he was "untamable" in childhood, picking up smoking at
age 5 and drinking at 8. He seemed to be headed for a life of crime until his
older brother, Pete, began coaching him in track. Louie, a naturally gifted
runner, immediately started winning meets and breaking records, and he ended up
representing the United States in the 5000-meter race at the 1936 Olympics in
Berlin. He didn't win, but his performance impressed Hitler, who asked to meet
him.
Louie's dreams of medaling at
the 1940 Olympics were of course dashed by the war. As an Army Air Forces
bombardier, Louie—under the assured flying of Russell Allen Phillips, piloting
a B-24—participated in a number of combat missions in the Pacific theater. But
it was a rescue mission that sent Louie, Phillips, and nine other men into the
air on May 27, 1943, searching for a B-24 that had gone down. When their plane
crashed in turn, only Louie, Phillips, and one other man, a tail gunner named
Francis "Mac" McNamara, survived.
Hillenbrand describes the men's 47-day ordeal at sea in
wrenching detail, including the constant circling of sharks, an attack by a
Japanese bomber on the 27th day, and Mac's death on the 33rd. By the time they
reached land, having drifted 2000 miles to the Marshall Islands, each man had
lost at least half his body weight. While Louie and Phillips were treated
kindly by the stunned Japanese who found them, they were soon transferred to
Kwajalein, nicknamed Execution Island, where, separated into tiny, sweltering,
dark cells teeming with lice, mosquitoes, and maggots, Louie actually
"missed the raft."
As Unbroken recounts the trials that Louie faced during and after the
war (much of the narrative is based on interviews with him), Hillenbrand often
pulls back to paint a broader picture. An exhaustive researcher, she provides context
on everything from wartime flight (in the Pacific theater, "for every
plane lost in combat, some six planes were lost in accidents," and search
planes may have been more likely to go down than to find the men they were
searching for) to the neglected stories of Pacific POWs. "Of the 34,648
Americans held by Japan, 12,935—more than 37 percent—died. By comparison, only
1 percent of Americans held by the Nazis and Italians died," she writes,
explaining that the Japanese contempt for POWs was rooted in a cultural belief
that "to be captured in war was intolerably shameful."
Hillenbrand also paces the book
expertly, inserting affirming moments of grace and heroism just when the
narrative is getting unbearably grim. She describes the kindnesses of several Japanese
guards and POWs—including Louie, who once gave his ration to a critically ill
friend, calling it "the hardest and easiest thing he ever did." She
also details the "humming underground of defiance" that existed at
the camps, the risky acts of rebellion through which captives communicated war
news to each other and stole food. Louie was even able to keep a diary with a
tiny book made of flattened rice paste sewn into pages.
Now 93, the remarkable Zamperini has outlived his siblings,
his wife, and most everyone he served with. His first years home were clouded
by nightmares, heavy drinking, and an obsession with revenge, and he credits a
conversion at a revival led by a young Billy Graham with turning his life
around. Louie (who told his own story in a 2003 autobiography, Devil at My Heels)
eventually founded a camp for troubled boys. He has visited Japan and met with
some of his former captors. He's carried the Olympic torch at five different
Games. The book includes a photograph of him riding a skateboard at 81.
But, as Hillenbrand seems to
acknowledge by dedicating Unbroken to
"the wounded and the lost," the book is haunted by the presence of
those who didn't survive the war. In Louie's cell at Execution Island someone
had carved the names of nine marines who'd been captured there and, Louie
learned, executed. He carved his name alongside theirs but, of course, met a
different fate. While Louis Zamperini is probably—and deservedly—about to
become as well known as Seabiscuit, it's difficult to read Unbroken without thinking of all the lives cut short and stories
never told.
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