Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

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Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Name: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Price: 9.99 USD
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Rating: 4.7 (75894 reviews)
Author: Laura Hillenbrand
ISBN: 9781400064168

Laura Hillenbrand

(Author)

4.7

75,894 ratings

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incredible true story of survival and salvation that is the basis for two major motion pictures: Unbroken and Unbroken: Path to Redemption.

“Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal

Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

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ISBN-10

9781400064168

ISBN-13

978-1400064168

Print length

473 pages

Language

English

Publisher

Random House

Publication date

November 15, 2010

Dimensions

6.4 x 1.42 x 9.55 inches

Item weight

1.78 pounds

Popular Highlights in this book

Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live.
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The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer.
Highlighted by 13,900 Kindle readers
This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind.
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A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain. Louie thought: Let go.
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1400064163

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Editorial Reviews

“Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal

“[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York

“Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People

“A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post

“Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Marvelous . . . Unbroken is wonderful twice over, for the tale it tells and for the way it’s told. . . . It manages maximum velocity with no loss of subtlety.”—Newsweek

“Moving and, yes, inspirational . . . [Laura] Hillenbrand’s unforgettable book . . . deserve[s] pride of place alongside the best works of literature that chart the complications and the hard-won triumphs of so-called ordinary Americans and their extraordinary time.”—Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air

“Hillenbrand . . . tells [this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time

“Unbroken is too much book to hope for: a hellride of a story in the grip of the one writer who can handle it. . . . When it comes to courage, charisma, and impossible adventure, few will ever match ‘the boy terror of Torrance,’ and few but the author of Seabiscuit could tell his tale with such humanity and dexterity. Hillenbrand has given us a new national treasure.”—Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run

“Riveting . . . an exceptional portrait . . . So haunting and so beautifully written, those who fall under its spell will never again feel the same way about World War II and one of its previously unsung heroes.”—The Columbus Dispatch

“Magnificent . . . incredible . . . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.”—The Dallas Morning News

“No other author of narrative nonfiction chooses her subjects with greater discrimination or renders them with more discipline and commitment. If storytelling were an Olympic event, [Hillenbrand would] medal for sure.”—Salon

“A celebration of gargantuan fortitude . . . full of unforgettable characters, multi-hanky moments and wild turns . . . Hillenbrand is a muscular, dynamic storyteller.”—The New York Times

“[A] masterfully told true story . . . nothing less than a marvel.”—Washingtonian

“Zamperini’s story is certainly one of the most remarkable survival tales ever recorded. What happened after that is equally remarkable.”—Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair

“Irresistible . . . Hillenbrand demonstrates a dazzling ability—one Seabiscuit only hinted at—to make the tale leap off the page.”—Elle

“A tale of triumph and redemption . . . astonishingly detailed.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

“An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Intense . . . You better hold onto the reins.”—The Boston Globe

“Incredible . . . Zamperini’s life is one of courage, heroism, humility and unflagging endurance.”—St. Louis Post Dispatch

“Hillenbrand has once again brought to life the true story of a forgotten hero, and reminded us how lucky we are to have her, one of our best writers of narrative history. You don’t have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book—you just have to love great storytelling.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Sample

Chapter One

The One-Boy Insurgency

In the predawn darkness of August 26, 1929, in the back bedroom of a small house inTorrance, California, a twelve-year-old boy sat up in bed, listening. There was a sound coming from outside, growing ever louder. It was a huge, heavy rush, suggesting immensity, a great parting of air. It was coming from directly above the house. The boy swung his legs off his bed, raced down the stairs, slapped open the back door, and loped onto the grass. The yard was otherworldly, smothered in unnatural darkness, shivering with sound. The boy stood on the lawn beside his older brother, head thrown back, spellbound.

The sky had disappeared. An object that he could see only in silhouette, reaching across a massive arc of space, was suspended low in theair over the house. It was longer than two and a half football fields and as tall as a city. It was putting out the stars.

What he saw was the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin. At nearly 800 feet long and 110 feet high, it was the largest flying machine evercrafted. More luxurious than the finest airplane, gliding effortlessly over huge distances, built on a scale that left spectators gasping, it was, in the summer of '29, the wonder of the world.

The airship was three days from completing a sensational feat of aeronautics, circumnavigation of the globe. The journey had begun onAugust 7, when the Zeppelin had slipped its tethers in Lakehurst, New Jersey, lifted up with a long, slow sigh, and headed for Manhattan. On Fifth Avenue that summer, demolition was soon to begin on the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, clearing the way for a skyscraper of unprecedented proportions, the Empire State Building. At Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx, players were debuting numbered uniforms: Lou Gehrig wore No. 4; Babe Ruth, about to hit his five hundredth home run, wore No. 3. On Wall Street, stock prices were racing toward an all-time high.

After a slow glide around the Statue of Liberty, the Zeppelin banked north, then turned out over the Atlantic. In time, land came below again: France, Switzerland, Germany. The ship passed over Nuremberg, where fringe politician Adolf Hitler, whose Nazi Party had been trounced in the 1928 elections, had just delivered a speech touting selective infanticide. Then it flew east of Frankfurt, where a Jewish woman named Edith Frank was caring for her newborn, a girl named Anne. Sailing northeast, the Zeppelin crossed over Russia. Siberian villagers, so isolated that they'd never even seen a train, fell to their knees at the sight of it.

On August 19, as some four million Japanese waved handkerchiefs and shouted "Banzai!" the Zeppelin circled Tokyo and sank onto a landing field. Four days later, as the German and Japanese anthems played, the ship rose into the grasp of a typhoon that whisked it over the Pacific at breathtaking speed, toward America. Passengers gazing from the windows saw only the ship's shadow, following it along the clouds "like a huge shark swimming alongside." When the clouds parted, the passengers glimpsed giant creatures, turning in the sea, that looked like monsters.

On August 25, the Zeppelin reached San Francisco. After being cheered down the California coast, it slid through sunset, into darkness and silence, and across midnight. As slow as the drifting wind, it passed over Torrance, where its only audience was a scattering of drowsy souls, among them the boy in his pajamas behind the house on Gramercy Avenue.

Standing under the airship, his feet bare in the grass, he was transfixed. It was, he would say, "fearfully beautiful." He could feel the rumble of the craft's engines tilling the air but couldn't make out the silver skin, the sweeping ribs, the finned tail. He could see only the blackness of the space it inhabited. It was not a great presence but a great absence, a geometric ocean of darkness that seemed to swallow heaven itself.

The boy's name was Louis Silvie Zamperini. The son of Italian immigrants, he had come into the world in Olean, New York, on January 26, 1917, eleven and a half pounds of baby under black hair as coarse as barbed wire. His father, Anthony, had been living on his own since age fourteen, first as a coal miner and boxer, then as a construction worker. His mother, Louise, was a petite, playful beauty, sixteen at marriage and eighteen when Louie was born. In their apartment, where only Italian was spoken, Louise and Anthony called their boy Toots.

From the moment he could walk, Louie couldn't bear to be corralled. His siblings would recall him careening about, hurdling flora, fauna, and furniture. The instant Louise thumped him into a chair and told him to be still, he vanished. If she didn't have her squirming boy clutched in her hands, she usually had no idea where he was.

In 1919, when two-year-old Louie was down with pneumonia, he climbed out his bedroom window, descended one story, and went on a naked tear down the street with a policeman chasing him and a crowd watching in amazement. Soon after, on a pediatrician's advice, Louise and Anthony decided to move their children to the warmer climes of California. Sometime after their train pulled out of Grand Central Station, Louie bolted, ran the length of the train, and leapt from the caboose. Standing with his frantic mother as the train rolled backward in search of the lost boy, Louie's older brother, Pete, spotted Louie strolling up the track in perfect serenity. Swept up in his mother's arms, Louie smiled. "I knew you'd come back," he said in Italian.

In California, Anthony landed a job as a railway electrician and bought a half-acre field on the edge of Torrance, population 1,800. He and Louise hammered up a one-room shack with no running water, an outhouse behind, and a roof that leaked so badly that they had to keep buckets on the beds. With only hook latches for locks, Louise took to sitting by the front door on an apple box with a rolling pin in her hand, ready to brain any prowlers who might threaten her children.

There, and at the Gramercy Avenue house where they settled a year later, Louise kept prowlers out, but couldn't keep Louie in hand. Contesting a footrace across a busy highway, he just missed getting broadsided by a jalopy. At five, he started smoking, picking up discarded cigarette butts while walking to kindergarten. He began drinking one night when he was eight; he hid under the dinner table, snatched glasses of wine, drank them all dry, staggered outside, and fell into a rosebush.

On one day, Louise discovered that Louie had impaled his leg on a bamboo beam; on another, she had to ask a neighbor to sew Louie's severed toe back on. When Louie came home drenched in oil after scaling an oil rig, diving into a sump well, and nearly drowning, it took a gallon of turpentine and a lot of scrubbing before Anthony recognized his son again. Thrilled by the crashing of boundaries, Louie was untamable. As he grew into his uncommonly clever mind, mere feats of daring were no longer satisfying. In Torrance, a one-boy insurgency was born.

If it was edible, Louie stole it. He skulked down alleys, a roll of lock-picking wire in his pocket. Housewives who stepped from their kitchens would return to find that their suppers had disappeared. Residents looking out their back windows might catch a glimpse of a long-legged boy dashing down the alley, a whole cake balanced on his hands. When a local family left Louie off their dinner-party guest list, he broke into their house, bribed their Great Dane with a bone, and cleaned out their icebox. At another party,he absconded with an entire keg of beer. When he discovered that the cooling tables at Meinzer's Bakery stood within an arm's length of the back door, he began picking the lock, snatching pies, eating until he was full, and reserving the rest as ammunition for ambushes. When rival thieves took up the racket, he suspended the stealing until the culprits were caught and the bakery owners dropped their guard. Then he ordered his friends to rob Meinzer's again.

It is a testament to the content of Louie's childhood that his stories about it usually ended with "...and then I ran like mad." He was often chased by people he had robbed, and at least two people threatened to shoot him. To minimize the evidence found on him when the police habitually came his way, he set up loot-stashing sites around town, including a three-seater cave that he dug in a nearby forest. Under the Torrance High bleachers, Pete once found a stolen wine jug that Louie had hidden there. It was teeming with inebriated ants. In the lobby of the Torrance theater, Louie stopped up the pay telephone's coin slots with toilet paper. He returned regularly to feedwire behind the coins stacked up inside, hook the paper, and fill his palms with change. A metal dealer never guessed that the grinning Italian kid who often came by to sell him armfuls of copper scrap had stolen the same scrap from his lot the night before. Discovering, while scuffling with an enemy at a circus, that adults would give quarters to fighting kids to pacify them, Louie declared a truce with the enemy and they cruised around staging brawls before strangers.

To get even with a railcar conductor who wouldn't stop for him, Louie greased the rails. When a teacher made him stand in a corner for spitballing, he deflated her car tires with toothpicks. After setting a legitimate Boy Scout state record in friction-fire ignition, he broke his record by soaking his tinder in gasoline and mixing it with match heads, causing a small explosion. He stole a neighbor's coffee percolator tube, set up a sniper's nest in a tree, crammed pepper-tree berries into his mouth, spat them through the tube, and sent the neighborhood girls running.

His magnum opus became legend. Late one night, Louie climbed the steeple of a Baptist church, rigged the bell with piano wire, strung the wire into a nearby tree, and roused the police, the fire department, and all of Torrance with apparently spontaneous pealing. The more credulous townsfolk called it a sign from God.

Only one thing scared him. When Louie was in late boyhood, a pilot landed a plane near Torrance and took Louie up for a flight. One might have expected such an intrepid child to be ecstatic, but the speed and altitude frightened him. From that day on, he wanted nothing to do with airplanes.

In a childhood of artful dodging, Louie made more than just mischief. He shaped who he would be in manhood. Confident that he was clever, resourceful, and bold enough to escape any predicament, he was almost incapable of discouragement. When history carried him into war, this resilient optimism would define him.

Louie was twenty months younger than his brother, who was everything he was not. Pete Zamperini was handsome, popular, impeccably groomed, polite to elders and avuncular to juniors, silky smooth with girls, and blessed with such sound judgment that even when he was a child, his parents consulted him on difficult decisions. He ushered his mother into her seat at dinner, turned in at seven, and tucked his alarm clock under his pillow so as not to wake Louie, with whom he shared a bed. He rose at two-thirty to run a three-hour paper route, and deposited all his earnings in the bank, which would swallow every penny when the Depression hit. He had a lovely singing voice and a gallant habit of carrying pins in his pant cuffs, in case his dance partner's dress strap failed. He once saved a girl from drowning. Pete radiated a gentle but impressive authority that led everyone he met, even adults, to be swayed by his opinion. Even Louie, who made a religion out of heeding no one, did as Pete said.

Louie idolized Pete, who watched over him and their younger sisters, Sylvia and Virginia, with paternal protectiveness. But Louie was eclipsed, and he never heard the end of it. Sylvia would recall her mother tearfully telling Louie how she wished he could be more like Pete. What made it more galling was that Pete's reputation was part myth. Though Pete earned grades little better than Louie's failing ones, his principal assumed that he was a straight-A student. On the night of Torrance's church bell miracle, a well-directed flashlight would have revealed Pete's legs dangling from the tree alongside Louie's. And Louie wasn't always the only Zamperini boy who could be seen sprinting down the alley with food that had lately belonged to the neighbors. But it never occurred to anyone to suspect Pete of anything. "Pete never got caught," said Sylvia. "Louie always got caught."

Nothing about Louie fit with other kids. He was a puny boy, and in his first years in Torrance, his lungs were still compromised enough from the pneumonia that in picnic footraces, every girl in town could dust him. His features, which would later settle into pleasant collaboration, were growing at different rates, giving him a curious face that seemed designed by committee. His ears leaned sidelong off his head like holstered pistols, and above them waved a calamity of black hair that mortified him. He attacked it with his aunt Margie's hot iron, hobbled it in a silk stocking every night, and slathered it with so much olive oil that flies trailed him to school. It did no good.

And then there was his ethnicity. In Torrance in the early 1920s, Italians were held in such disdain that when the Zamperinis arrived, the neighbors petitioned the city council to keep them out. Louie, who knew only a smattering of English until he was in grade school, couldn't hide his pedigree. He survived kindergarten by keeping mum, but in first grade, when he blurted out "Brutte bastarde!" at another kid, his teachers caught on. They compounded his misery by holding him back a grade.

He was a marked boy. Bullies, drawn by his oddity and hoping to goad him into uttering Italian curses, pelted him with rocks, taunted him, punched him, and kicked him. He tried buying their mercy with his lunch, but they pummeled him anyway, leaving him bloody. He could have ended the beatings by running away or succumbing to tears, but he refused to do either. "You could beat him to death," said Sylvia, "and he wouldn't say 'ouch' or cry." He just put his hands in front of his face and took it. As Louie neared his teens, he took a hard turn. Aloof and bristling, he lurked around the edges of Torrance, his only friendships forged loosely with rough boys who followed his lead. He became so germophobic that he wouldn't tolerate anyone coming near his food. Though he could be a sweet boy, he was often short-tempered and obstreperous. He feigned toughness, but was secretly tormented. Kids passing into parties would see him lingering outside, unable to work up the courage to walk in.

Laura Hillenbrand

Laura Hillenbrand is an American author of books and magazine articles. Her two best-selling nonfiction books, Seabiscuit: An American Legend and Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption have sold over 10 million copies, and each was adapted for film. Her writing style is considered to differ from the New Journalism style, dropping verbal pyrotechnics in favor of a stronger focus on the story itself. Both books were written after she fell ill in college, barring her from completing her degree. She told that story in an award-winning essay, A Sudden Illness, which was published in The New Yorker in 2003. She was 28 years with Borden Flanagan, from whom she separated by 2014.

Reviews

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5

75,894 global ratings

MBM

UNBROKEN; Heartbreaking and Heartwarming - Review from a son of a Marine who fought in WWII

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2015

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First off, I must say that I am very encouraged to see the THOUSANDS of positive reviews of this book. The bravery, unbelievable sacrifices, devotion, patriotism, and tenacity of "The Greatest Generation" should never be forgotten. I am heartened to see that even in this day and age of Political Correctness, many share my feelings on the matter.

Please bear with me for a moment, while I provide a little personal background before launching into my review. I feel it is relevant.

I can very proudly say that my parents (I am 51) were members of that generation to whom we all owe an immeasurable amount of gratitude. At the time of World War II, My father was a very young Marine (one of my pet peeves is seeing "Marine" spelled with a lowercase "m") who joined the USMC shortly after the war broke out. As so many in the US military did, he fought the Japanese in the Pacific from one hell hole island to another. Thankfully, he made it home safely, and went on to lead a very distinguished career in the United States Marine Corps. Sadly, he died when I was only 17 (he was a much too young 59), and many is the time I have wished I could have talked to him about his war experiences, especially since I have grown to become an avid student of history for the past 25 years. Note; if there are any members or past members of the US military in your family or circle of friends, LISTEN TO THEM ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES! I was young and stupid, and my opportunity is lost.

Now for the book. POSSIBLE SPOILERS..... This book is Odyssean in its vast tapestry of one epic struggle after another. The name of Louis Zamperini is one that, hopefully now, thanks to Laura Hillenbrand, will become a household name in the pantheon of great Americans. From the time of his youth, to the rigors of the Olympics, to the gripping fear of aerial combat, she traces his remarkable life through a seemingly never ending ordeal of survival while being lost at sea for a record 47 days, only to be captured by the Japanese to endure a withering, seemingly ceaseless nightmare of thirst, starvation, torture, sickness, humiliation, loss and loneliness, eventually becoming a fixed recipient of unbelievable brutality by a sick and twisted sadist who is relentless in his devotion to break Mr. Zamperini's spirit.

Frequently, when thinking about WWII vets, I have often wondered out loud to my wife; "how in the world did these guys, after seeing what they saw and experiencing what they experienced, get on with 'normal' life?" Indeed, one could argue that Louis Zamperini's greatest challenges came AFTER he experienced a multitude of challenges that would have utterly destroyed most people in body, mind and soul. Thankfully for Louis and his family (and his family is VERY much a part of the story), he eventually found a way. Regarding his family, this book should appeal to many people across a wide spectrum, as Laura Hillenbrand takes us into the thoughts and emotions of those who loved him most, and we share in their seemingly interminable hours of agony, spent in the uncertainty of any knowledge of the well being of one they held so dear.

The book is very well researched, and one can tell that Laura Hillenbrand certainly put a Herculean amount of effort into putting it together. My only negative critique would be that I occasionally found some of the sentence structure to be a bit choppy. However, that being said, she does a wonderful job of allowing us, as much as possible within a book, to see, hear, smell, feel, and taste the details of a story that stagger the imagination. It is emotionally riveting.

This book will inspire you, make you angry, make you cry, and make you immeasurably proud to be an American. Ultimately, it will reveal in a very raw, graphic, (this book is not for the squeamish), heartbreaking and heartwarming way, the indomitable spirit of mankind, and how one man, after living through seven kinds of hell, remained, UNBROKEN.

Please allow me to close by expressing a deeply heartfelt THANK YOU to all the brave and wonderful men and women, past, present, and future, who wear the uniform, be it Army, Navy, Air Force, United States Marine Corps, Coast Guard, or National Guard. We live free because you serve.

106 people found this helpful

T. Poole

Didn't think I would enjoy this book

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2012

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First off, I did not think I would enjoy this book. I do not like war books, I do not like pain and suffering. That is about 99% of this book. I enjoy books such as The Mitford Series, Harry Potter, southern humorous books. I really like books that are well written and make you smile. So why did I read this one? I am going to work on a project where we record the histories of war veterans to be archived. We will interview them and record their accounts and experiences. We have a few World War II veterans living in our community, and I wanted to read up on my WWII history in order to know a little more about it than what I received in high school and college. The reviews on this book were very high, so I ordered it on my Kindle, and began reading, not expecting to enjoy it at all, and a little bit hesitant.

First off, I was quite surprised that I read it and actually enjoyed reading it. I also learned much more about WWII than I would have ever learned from a text book. The author used the facts that she had, and documented where her facts came from. This information was not boring either. She worked it into the story so that you knew what was going on during the war in Japan, at the same time "x" was going on on the other side of the world. You also would think that a person would give up long before Louie did, but he kept holding on, just like I kept holding on reading this book...you wanted to see if he would get out of the hell he was in and into a better place. Each time, it just kept getting worse. But, this still was not "hard" to read, because little bits of hope would filter in and keep you going...just like it kept Louie going. Louie is a remarkable man. I am sure there are many other remarkable men. My uncle survived the Bataan Death March, so he too had the drive that Louie had to survive, but Louie had kept every bit of documentation of his life and experience, so the author was able to use his photos, letters, etc to create this account of his life.

I started to give this a 4 star review...because I still do not like the subject matter, nor the abuse, the loss of so many lives...so the 4 star would be for the actual topic...the war with Japan. But that's not the books fault. The book is a 5 star book, so I went ahead and gave it a 5 star rating.

If you would like to read a good book, but aren't the history/war/torture type of reader...please don't let the subject matter of this book stop you. It is not presented in a way that makes it hard to read. On the contrary, it kept me reading. I know my review is lame. But I struggled with how to review this book, and I decided not to worry about how I "described it" and to just write my thoughts. I didn't want to put details in, because it was the details that kept me turning the pages, so I will leave them to you to discover. It's a book you will be proud to say "I read that book" and it will give you an insight to our veterans and what they endured. It also helps me to understand how bitter my uncle was whenever he would encounter an Asian from 'any' country...it didn't matter that they weren't Japanese...he couldn't be near them. I never understood that, but after reading how they were treated, now I understand.

I will probably purchase the hardcover edition of this book, so that I can have my kids read it and to have on my shelf for others to read, borrow, etc. I enjoy reading my Kindle, but some books deserve to be present on your shelf. This one does.

Megan

amazing, haunting book

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2014

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The story of Louie Zamperini as told by Laura Hillenbrand truly captures both the emotional and the factual accounts of Louie's life and the lives of so many other POWs. The research put into this book is astounding, but the facts flow in a way that is easy to understand (but still challenging in the right way). The characters are developed as deeply complicated, and their stories read like a brilliant novel. At times, I had to remind myself that this is all real, all true.

Within its pages, this book brings joy, hope, faith, sorrow, loss, and truth. I was extraordinarily invested in the characters and found myself haunted by their experiences. Though I feel like I have a good understanding of WWII, the majority of my knowledge comes from European accounts, both fiction and nonfiction. Subconsciously, I think I've stayed away from the Pacific side of things.

My grandfather was an American Navy Officer stationed in and around Southeast Asia during the war. My great-grandfather, on the other side of my family, was a Japanese air force pilot. My great-uncle was an interpreter. They both died fighting for Japan.

In war, you want to believe that there is at least some semblance of rules and justice. WWII is complicated, because there was so little of that on the European side of the Axis. I guess, as third generation Japanese immigrant, I wanted to believe that Japan was different. But startlingly, just based on the statistics and stories in this book, POWs held by the Japanese were treated worse (MUCH worse) than POWs held by any other country, including Germany. Add that to the stories of mass genocide, enslavement, and torture carried out by the Japanese based on the same misguided eugenics doctrine as Hitler's followers, and it's no wonder they were on the same side.

So, when I was reading this book, I connected with Louie, since he and my Grandfather both served in different capacities in the same part of the war. But I had an almost guilty connection with the Japanese, wondering if the Zero pilots, the interpreters, the soldiers of Japan's atrocious warfare described in the book were my family members. Where was my grandma during all of this? How did she feel about the Japanese superiority complex? I'd like to think she never agreed, but as the daughter and sister of soldiers, who really knows. I never asked and if I had, I doubt she would have told me. The family enshrined my dead relatives but never spoke of their service, deaths, or the war. It was a subject not to be brought up in the presence of my Japanese relatives, and in some ways, was equally difficult to discuss for my American grandfather.

This book is incredible. Life-changing. Challenging and hard but also joyful and wonderful. I learned so much, but most importantly, I was challenged to think about this war in a different way. I started considering my relationship to history but also the general implications of this war and how it has shaped America in the smallest and largest of ways. I would highly recommend it, even if you are someone who does not enjoy nonfiction.

Ron Coia

Why Haven't We Heard of Him Growing Up? Zamperini is a True Hero

Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2011

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For good reason, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand landed on many Best of the Year lists in 2010, including on Mark's. I'm not sure I would have picked this up otherwise; I like World War II books as much as the next guy (if the next guy in question also likes World War II books), but this is focused on one man. And it's 500 pages. I wasn't sure that I was ready to commit.

I'm so glad that I did. After a few pages, I knew that I would love this book. Unbroken is the story of Louie Zamperini, a hooligan-turned-Olympic runner-turned-pilot-turned-prisoner of war-turned- unbroken and hopeful man. That's a pretty good one-sentence summary of the book, just in case the publisher is looking for a subtitle for the forthcoming paperback version. I liked Louie instantly; he was a troublemaker tough-guy, but found his escape from his California town by running. Introduced to the sport by his brother, Louie runs in high school, college, and then in the 1936 Berlin Olympics where he met Adolph Hitler.

His life changed soon after as the story follows Louie into his new career as an AAC bombardier, until he crashes in the Pacific. Louie and two others survive at sea for over forty days without provisions (with a troubling scene about a lice infestation in his newly grown beard). If the story ended here, it would be a powerful journey. However, it does not. Much of the book is his horrid treatment in several prisoner of war camps in Japan. Just when I thought all the evil happened to Louie, there is a new chapter of horror.

The title is perfect to describe Zamperini. This man personifies courage, resilience, and hope in ways I have never seen. There were times I gasped aloud to read his ordeals. The squalor and suffering only provide a backdrop to allow Louie's courage and character to shine brightly.

I hesitate to say to much to avoid taking away the suspense as you read it, but allow me to say that Louie continues to sink lower into despondency and hopeless until God intervenes. In literature, it's called deux ex machina; in life, it is called redemption.

This book also has much to say about the many Japanese atrocities in World War II, whether it is in prison camps, Pearl Harbor, or Nanking:

"The Japanese military surrounded the city of Nanking, stranding more than half a million civilians and 90,000 Chinese soldiers. The soldiers surrendered and, assured of their safety, submitted to being bound. Japanese officers then issued a written order: ALL PRISONERS OF WAR ARE TO BE EXECUTED. What followed was a six-week frenzy of killing that defies articulation. Masses of POWs were beheaded, machine-gunned, bayoneted, and burned alive. The Japanese turned on civilians, engaging in killing contests, raping tens of thousands of people, mutilating and crucifying them, and provoking dogs to maul them. Japanese soldiers took pictures of themselves posing alongside hacked-up bodies, severed heads, and women strapped down for rape. The Japanese press ran tallies of the killing contests as if they were baseball scores, praising the heroism of the contestants. Historians estimate that the Japanese military murdered between 200,000 and 430,000 Chinese, including the 90,000 POWs, in what became known as the Rape of Nanking."

This gives a more complete picture of the behavior and the attitudes of Japan, and why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were last resorts. Japan was on par of the atrocities committed by Hitler and Germany, and the two countries had more in common during treatment of people during the war than they differed. This concept certainly is not in our modern psyche. It is accepted (and often applauded) to denigrate Germany, but it is labeled as racist if we criticize Japan.

In addition to the highlighting of a great man and as a history lesson, Unbroken is simply excellent prose. Hillenbrand has a poetic style of writing even the cruelest events.

Examples: He felt as if he would faint, but it wasn't from the exertion. It was from the realization of what he was.

One engine, for reasons known only to the plane, was thirstier than the others, so the gauges had to be watched constantly

There was one perk to life in the barracks. The bathroom was plastered in girlie pinups, a Sistine Chapel of pornography. But it was good to feel oriented, to know that they were drifting toward land somewhere out there, on the far side of the earth's tilt.

Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. The loss of it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure, and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty. In places like Kwajalein, degradation could be as lethal as a bullet.

The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer.

Whether or not you are a fan of war accounts, go read this book. Like me, you will be mesmerized with Louie Zamperini for good reason. He is a man who stands above other men, and his story demands to be told. The more like Zamperini we are, the better the world would be.

7 people found this helpful

Niki E.

a story of survival

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2018

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I finished this one a few days ago, but have put off writing a review. Part of me wants to rate this 5 stars because the story of everything Louis Zamperini went through deserves 5 stars. Unfortunately, I found myself really not enjoying the writer's writing style on quite a few different parts throughout the book. Honestly, while it was a really good book, I think it could have been even better in the hands of another writer. (Example: I have no interest in sports whatsoever. However, The Boys In the Boat was one of my favorite books that I read last year. Author Daniel James Brown was able to take a subject I have no interest in and make it enthralling.) There were times when I felt the author was unnecessarily vulgar in her writing.

The subject matter of the book was interesting and definitely won't be leaving my mind for a long time to come. However, it won't rank up there as one of my all time favorite nonfiction reads simply because there were times when I didn't care for the writing itself. It's definitely one worth reading, though, because they things that bothered me may not bother other readers. I do recommend checking out the Young Adult edition as well simply for the extra photos it offers. I do not recommend this for younger readers as much of the subject matter is quite brutal and horrific. I would say 4.5 stars, but I may round up as I see how the story follows me after finishing.

Spoilers Ahead

Anyway, back to the subject of the book. Louis "Louie" Zamperini definitely lived an interesting life. Raised in a very loving and supportive family, he was a wild child who was constantly into mischief that progressed into stealing as he got older. I think he was very lucky that his older brother, Pete, helped steer him towards running as a healthier outlet for his energy. He was a natural and, with training and hard work, he made it to the 1936 Olympics and would likely have medaled at the 1940 Olympics if war had not broken out.

He ended up as a bombardier in the Air Corps. Unfortunately, the US government treated their soldiers as they have in many other wars in that they were easily dispensable. They gave them planes that were quite unsafe to fly and then filled them inadequately with supplies in the case of crashes. Many, many men died in training with never having even seen any combat. After Louie had been stationed for two months, several dozen men from his bomb group, 1/4 of his barracks had been killed and many of those were a result of plane crashes. Between 1943 and 1945, 400 AAF crews were lost en route to their theaters. Oftentimes, no one ever knew what happened to the planes or their crews. Unfortunately, Louie's plane, sent out on a rescue mission, ended up being one of those planes that simply vanished (ie. crashed, but no one knew where).

Louie and his pilot and friend, Phil, miraculously survived over 40 days on the ocean with little to no supplies. They managed to create something to catch rain water and subsisted on the few fish and birds they were able to catch. After enduring sharks, starvation, dehydration, the sun bearing down on them, and being shot at by enemy planes, they were taken as POWs by the Japanese.

I don't even know how to describe the treatment of POWs by the Japanese. It was beyond horrific. I can't even grasp how one is able to do those types of things to a fellow human being even in the atmosphere of war. Sadly, Louie was singled out by one particularly horrible monster nicknamed "The Bird." He made Louie's life hell on earth. I found myself often cringing and horrified by what the POWs were subjected to. Thirty-seven percent of Allied POWs died in Japanese camps versus one percent in Nazi camps and we all know how awful the Nazis were.

The devastation Louie and Phil's families felt when they found out they were missing was so horrible. I can't even imagine what they went through. I honestly sobbed through the entire chapter talking about their families when they found out and everything they went through not knowing, but still believing that they were still alive. They never gave up on them.

Even after the end of the war and the POWs were rescued, the Pacific POWs suffered through PTSD and the things they endured often followed them their whole lives. It was no wonder that so many of them had a hard time coping and some turned to alcohol or suicide as their only way out. It was interesting following Louie's life after the war and seeing him finally triumph over his abusers even going so far as to forgive them. (I don't think I could be that strong.)

I was personally disgusted that the American government treated the Japanese war criminals in much the same way they did the Nazi war criminals in the 1950s. Many of the Japanese war criminals were tried and executed or imprisoned after the war, but the American government chose to take a "forgive and forget" style when it came to the atrocities committed against the POWs with the Cold War approaching. They decided to release many who had been preciviously convicted and halted the trials of many more. Unfortunately, this meant "The Bird" was never tried even though he ranked up there was one of the most terrible men in the war in the Pacific.

I'm glad that Louie found happiness in the end after all he endured. It's sad that so many others didn't. The camp he set up in the wilderness to helped troubled youth sounded like a great program.

26 people found this helpful

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