Short Essay On Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is a biography of Louis Zamperini, a famous Olympic runner and a World War 2 POW veteran. Running impacted Louis’ life in many ways. As a young boy, Louis was always a troublemaker. He started running and his behavior improved drastically. During the war, Louis reminisced of the memories of his running days. After the war, Louis used running as an escape from his thoughts. “The sports pages of the Los Angeles Times and Examiner were striped with stories on the prodigy, whom the times called the “Torrance Tempest” and practically everyone else called the “‘Torrance Tornado’” (page 21). In Louis’ early years of life, he was a troublemaker. He had failing grades, always in scuffles with other classmates,

Louie thought: let go” (page 34). In 1941 Louis joined the Army Air corps at the start of the World War 2. He was stationed at Oahu, Hawaii. On his free time, he continued running to stay in shape for the 1942 Olympics which he planned to run the 1,500 meter. He often ran and had some friends ride in a car next to him and time his mile. On the morning of May 27, 1943, Louis and his squadron were sent to search for a missing plane. They flew the Green Hornet. Later that day, the engines started failing and the plane crashed. Louis and two other men survived the crash, they floated at sea for 47 days. Louis and Phil, the only two survivors left of the green hornet were picked up by a Japanese boat and taken to Kwajalein POW camp. They were often interrogated and knew of the history of the camp. No POWs ever left that camp, they were all executed. Soon, Louis and Phil were taken to Ofuna. Ofuna was also an interrogation camp. After a few months at Ofuna, Louie was relocated to Omori, a punishment camp. The camps officer, Watanabe, discovered that Louie was a famous Olympian and challenged Louie to run against other Japanese captors. Louis weak body could not run like he used to. Soon after being at Omori, a radio station came to Louis asking him to write a letter to his family to broadcast on the radio. After a few days, the returned to have Louis broadcast another message to his family. This time, he wasn’t