"Unbroken"'s Louis Zamperini-- Part 2: Track Star and WWII Service

Louis Zamperini embodied the spirit of the Greatest Generation.  He was born in 1917 and grew up poor in Torrance, California.  He was kind of a juvenile delinquent until he found being a high school track star to his liking.  he was so good at it, he competed at age 19 in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the 5,000-meter race.

In 1941 he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and became a bombardier on a bomber.  In 1943, his B-24 malfunctioned and crashed into the Pacific Ocean.  he held on to life with another crew member for 49 days in an open rubber raft.  Unfortunately for him, it was the Japanese who found him and then things got even worse.

Zamperini became the special target of a brutal guard nicknamed "The Bird" who starved, humiliated and was savagely almost beaten to death.  He survived and remained a POW until the end of the war when he was freed.

--GreGen