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Summary: Unbroken is a heart wrenching life story of a World War II hero named Louie Zamperini. Louie was raised in a modest household with his Italian family. After being encouraged by his older brother Louie became eligible for athletics in 1932 and began to run on his school’s tracks team. His aptitude for running carried him into the 1936 Olympics which were held in Berlin, Germany. In 1941 Louie enlisted in the Army Air Corps before realizing how sick he gets while in the air. Louise left the air corps and was preparing for a role in a movie when he was drafted for the war. After being drafted and stationed in Hawaii Louie met his future crew. Assigned to a B-24D they took on the skies. May 27, 1943 Louie’s crew went out in search of another B24. Sent out in an unstable plane, which supposedly passed inspection, the crew combed the ocean until one of their engines gave out. The crew braced for impact and then hit the water. Louie was tangled in cables and began to sink with the plane, getting free he swam to the top to find one of the rafts. Louie Zamperini, Russell Allen Phillips, and Francis McNamara were the only survivors. Enduring the heat, surviving being shot at by a Japanese bomber plane, surviving off of shark liver and rainwater the three men fought for their lives at sea. On the Thirty third day Francis McNamara died, Louie and Phil float for a total of forty-seven days. Drifting nearly two thousand miles they get taken aboard a Japanese ship and brought to island in the Marshall Islands. Here they are fed well and confirmed to be healthy despite losing half their body weight. Thinking they were safe an officer told them that once they leave he cannot guarantee their lives. The two men were transported to multiple camps through out the next two years enduring an unbearable amount of beatings and torture. Despite the fact that the two men were separated early on they both survived the war and stayed in contact after returning home. Later in life Louie decides to return to japan to forgive his captors, the only one who didn’t want to see him was the man who tortured him the most, a man they called the Bird. Louie Zamperini was just one of the brave men who survived WWII internment camps and will forever be remembered in American history.

How it is Connected: This Book is connected to what my History 122 class is learning about simply by the World War connection. We have learned about Pearl Harbor and the continuous and violent relationship between the Japanese and the Americans. This book helped get a deeper and clearer understanding of the amount of hatred we all had for each other at this time period.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this book. The beginning was very hard to get through if you aren’t interested in history however once their plane crashed I felt on edge for the rest of the book. Once I got to chapter seven I fund it hard to put the book down. Although it was hard to read the horrific things that these brave men endured I found that it made me even more proud to be an American. Knowing the people who serve our country are so brave and strong makes me beam with pride. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves this country.

Title- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption Author- Laura Hillenbrand Publisher- Random House Year Published- 2010