Louis Zamperini

Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini (born January 26, 1917) is an Italian-American World War II prisoner of war survivor, inspirational speaker, and former Olympic distance runner.

Early life
Louis Zamperini was born January 26, 1917 in Olean, New York, to Italian immigrants Anthony Zamperini and Louise Dossi. He had an older brother named Pete, and two younger sisters, Virginia and Sylvia. The family moved to Torrance, California in 1919, where Louie attended Torrance High School. Louie and his family spoke no English when they moved to California, making him a target for bullies. His father taught him how to box in self-defense. Soon he claimed to be "beating the tar out of every one of them..... but [he] was so good at it that [he] started relishing the idea of getting even. [He] was sort of addicted to it."

To counteract Louie's knack for getting into trouble, his older brother Pete got him involved in the school track team. In 1934 Zamperini set a world interscholastic record for the mile, clocking in at 04:21.2 at the preliminary meet to the state championships. The following week he won the championships with a 04:27.8 That record helped him win a scholarship to the University of Southern California and eventually a place on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team in the 5000 metres, at 19 the youngest U.S. qualifier ever in that event.

While attending USC, Zamperini was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity and lived in the fraternity house along with his brother.

Olympic career
In the Olympic trials at Randall's Island, Zamperini finished in a dead tie in a heat against world-record holder Don Lash and qualified for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany, though neither he nor Lash had much chance of winning the 5000 meter race. Zamperini has related several amusing anecdotes from his Olympic experience, including gorging himself on the boat trip to Europe. "I was a Depression-era kid who had never even been to a drugstore for a sandwich," he said. "And all the food was free. I had not just one sweet roll, but about seven every morning, with bacon and eggs. My eyes were like saucers.” By the end of the trip, Zamperini, in common with most athletes on the ship, had gained a good deal of weight – in Zamperini's case, 12 pounds. While the weight gain was not advantageous for his running it was necessary for his health, as he had lost 15 pounds while training in the summer heat in New York for the Olympic Trials.

Zamperini finished eighth in the 5000 meter distance event at that Olympics, but his final lap of 56 seconds was fast enough to catch the attention of Adolf Hitler, who insisted on a personal meeting. As Zamperini tells the story, Hitler shook his hand, and said simply "Ah, you're the boy with the fast finish." According to a profile on Bill Stern's Sports Newsreel radio program, Zamperini climbed a flag pole during the 1936 Olympic games and stole the personal flag of Hitler.

Two years later, in 1938, Zamperini set a national collegiate mile record of 4:12 which held for fifteen years, earning him the nickname "Torrance Tornado".

Military career and prisoner of war
Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in September 1941, and earned a commission as a second lieutenant. He was deployed to the Pacific island of Funafuti as a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator bomber. In April 1942, the plane was badly damaged in combat, and the crew were assigned to conduct a search for a lost aircraft and crew. They were given another B-24, The Green Hornet, notorious among the pilots as a defective "lemon plane'. While on the search, mechanical difficulties caused the plane to crash into the ocean 850 miles west of Oahu, killing eight of the eleven men aboard.

The three survivors (Zamperini and his crewmates, pilot Russel Allen "Phil" Phillips and Francis "Mac" McNamara), with little food and no water, subsisted on captured rainwater and small fish eaten raw. They caught two albatrosses, which they ate and used to catch fish, all while fending off constant shark attacks and nearly being capsized by a storm. They were strafed multiple times by a Japanese bomber, puncturing their life raft, but no one was hit. McNamara died after thirty-three days at sea.

On their 47th day adrift, Zamperini and Phillips reached land in the Marshall Islands and were immediately captured by the Japanese Navy. They were held in captivity and severely beaten and mistreated until the end of the war in August, 1945. Zamperini was held in the Japanese Prisoner-of-war camp at Ōfuna for captives who were not registered as prisoners of war (POW). He was especially tormented by sadistic prison guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed "The Bird"), who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur's list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Held at the same camp was then-Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington, and in his book, Baa Baa Black Sheep, he discusses Zamperini and the Italian recipes he would write to keep the prisoners' minds off the food and conditions.

Zamperini had at first been declared missing at sea, and then, a year and a day after his disappearance, killed in action. When he eventually returned home he received a hero's welcome.

Post-war life
In 1946 he married Cynthia Applewhite, to whom he remained married until her death in 2001. After the war and suffering from severe post traumatic stress disorder, Zamperini became a born again Christian after attending a crusade led by evangelist Billy Graham in 1949 in Los Angeles. Graham later helped Zamperini launch a new career as a Christian inspirational speaker. His wife Cynthia was instrumental in getting him to go to Billy Graham's meetings and not leaving before he was converted. One of his favorite themes is "forgiveness," and he has visited many of the guards from his POW days to let them know that he has forgiven them. Many of the war criminals who committed the worst atrocities were held in the Sugamo prison in Tokyo. In October 1950, Zamperini went to Japan, gave his testimony and preached to them through an interpreter (a missionary named Fred Jarvis). The colonel in charge of the prison encouraged any of the prisoners who recognized Zamperini to come forward and meet him again. Zamperini threw his arms around each of them. Once again he explained the Christian Gospel of forgiveness to them. The prisoners were somewhat surprised by Zamperini's genuine affection for those who had once ill-treated him. Most of the prisoners accepted copies of the New Testament which had been given by the Gideons.

For his 81st birthday in January 1998, Zamperini ran a leg in the Olympic Torch relay for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. While there, he attempted to meet with his chief and most brutal tormentor during the war, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who had evaded prosecution as a war criminal, but the latter refused to see him. In March 2005 he returned to Germany to visit the Berlin Olympic Stadium for the first time since he competed there.

Torrance High School's home football, soccer, and track stadium is called Zamperini Stadium, and the entrance plaza at USC's track & field stadium was named Louis Zamperini Plaza in 2004. In his 90s, Zamperini continues to attend USC football games and befriended star quarterback Matt Barkley in 2009.

In October 2008, Zamperini was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago, IL.

On April 24, 2011, Zamperini received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters from Azusa Pacific University. The following month, on May 20, 2011, Zamperini delivered Bryant University's 2011 baccalaureate address and received Bryant's inaugural Distinguished Character Award. The following day, May 21, Bryant presented Zamperini with an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters. The next day he threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Red Sox-Cubs game at Fenway Park in Boston.

In late July 2011, Zamperini received the Kappa Sigma Golden Heart Award during the Kappa Sigma 68th Biennial Grand Conclave held at the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas.

Zamperini appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on June 7, 2012, speaking of his life in general, the 1936 Olympics and his World War II exploits.

Zamperini currently resides in Hollywood, California. The Torrance airport was renamed Zamperini Field in the 1960s.

Books
Zamperini wrote two memoirs about his experiences, both of them bearing the same title, Devil at My Heels. The first (written with Helen Itria) was published by Dutton in 1956. The second (with David Rensin) appeared in 2003 from Morrow.

Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit: An American Legend, has written a biography of Zamperini. The book, titled Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, was published by Random House in 2010 and was a #1 The New York Times bestseller. It was named the top book of 2010 by Time.