Rest In Peace Louis Zamperini, Olympian and War Hero

Louis Zamperini, an American runner who, as a 19 year old finished eighth in the 5000 meters at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, died at age 97 on July 2nd, 2014.  Zamperini was born in New York but spent most of his childhood in California, where he was a high school track star and earned a scholarship to the University of Southern California.  Though Zamperini finished eighth in his race, he had a strong finish that impressed spectator Adolf Hitler enough that Zamperini had a brief handshake meeting with the German dictator.

But Zamperini’s Olympic experience was just a small part of his incredible life.  He would have been a serious contender for a medal in the 1940 Olympics, except, of course, with World War II being fought, there were no Olympics. Louis Zamperini enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1941, and was a bombardier on a B-24 bomber in the Pacific.  In May of 1943, his plane malfunctioned and crashed into the ocean.  Zamperini and two other crewmen made it to a raft and drifted for 47 days (one man died on Day 33) until they reached an island, which happened to be held by the Japanese. They were taken prisoner, and spent the next two years in various prison camps under the most brutal of conditions, before being liberated from a camp near Tokyo at war’s end.

After the war, Zamperini went home, got married, a job, and tried to get back to a normal life, if that’s even possible after such an ordeal.  He battled alcoholism for a few years, but then, after listening to a sermon by evangelist Billy Graham, Zamperini began to turn his life around.  He even visited a Japanese prison housing war criminals, including some of his old guards, and forgave them for torturing him.  Incredible.  If that had been us, we’d have wanted to shoot them with an M-60 machine gun, but Louis Zamperini was a better man than we are.

Zamperini returned to Japan for the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics and participated in the torch relay. 

Writer Laura Hillenbrand wrote a biography of Zamperini in 2010 called “Unbroken:  A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption”.  The film “Unbroken” directed by Angelina Jolie, is slated for a Christmas 2014 release.

During this 4th of July weekend, let’s remember those who have given so much to preserve the freedom that we enjoy.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Zamperini.