Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Everybody should read this to better understand POWs and vets, what we're capable of enduring for survival, and the difference attitude can make. Holy wow. ( )

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I don't remember what I wrote!

I only remember I was in tears reading this. ( )

When I started this book, I knew absolutely nothing. It appeared as a suggestion in my library app. The audio version was available, so I started listening. I thought that I was listening to fiction, and found the first few chapters sort of dry. Why was this slow-moving backstory on Louis Zamperini so important? When would the story begin? So, I actually read the book description and realized that I was listening to a biography and a history. So when I continued listening, I paid more attention and learned an incredible amount. I really cannot say enough good things about this well-researched deeply affecting book.

Louis was a little lost in his early years. What turned things around? Running - and a push from Pete, his older bother. It was the 1930's in California. Once Louis started running, he started winning. On his high school track team he was a star. His winning track record led him to college - with a scholarship at the University of Southern California. And Louis, single-minded and determined, earned a spot on the Olympic track team in 1936 at 19 years old. While he didn't medal, his ending sprint caught the attention of Hitler who shook his hand, impressed with the effort and speed. And all this. The road from starting school when he could only speak Italian, to being bullied, to learning to fight, being disaffected, to being driven to run in the Olympics - all of this - led him to become a man who survived unimaginable deprivation and hardship.

The author paints an unflattering portrait of the Air Force in the early years of WWII. The airplanes were ill-equipped and the airmen too inexperienced. Many, many planes were lost in the Pacific Ocean in 1941 and 1942. As a bombardier, Louis flew numerous, dangerous missions. In April 1943, Louis's airplane was damaged during a bombing raid on a Japanese held Island. Louis provided emergency add to injured crew-mates as the bullet-ridden aircraft headed back to base. Incredibly, they made made it back but the plane was out of commission. And this all, was the best part of Louis's experience in WWII.

When Louis's aircraft is shot down over the Pacific (on his very next mission with a different crew and an airplane that had been stripped for parts), the unbearable, unreal journey through hell begins. Louis and one other survivor of the crash drifted for 47 days (the only other surviver died on day 33). What follows is an even more impossible and unbelievable 2 years as a prisoner of war.

This is where the author really shows her stripes as a researcher and writer. While providing as much detail as one might imagine of that harrowing time, she is also telling the story of the men's families, the military, and the country. It is more than just a who-knew-what-when. It is a personal and affecting account of the horror of war. And for those of us who think about WWII in terms of the battles on the European front, a reminder of equally painful price paid on the Pacific front. While Europe had the systematic extermination of Jews and others under the Third Reich, the Pacific had mass enforced enslavement and starvation of civilians (Koreans, Chinese) and prisoners of war. This was a genocide by the Empire of Japan.

At the end of this incredible book, I had an different view of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Seeing the WWII Japan through this lens left me feeling that there was no other way to end the war. The Empire who enslaved, beat, starved, humiliated, and literally broke (in body and spirit) their enemies would never have surrendered with only conventional weapons. While a different perspective may show America as the mass-murderer of civilians, there are more than two sides to this incredibly complicated story. I found this book eye-opening. ( )

I enjoyed this book and am giving it 5 stars for the incredible research the author put into this book.

I read it mainly during my lunch break at work. Not the easiest lunchtime reading, but it was still very interesting.

The beginning parts about the Olympics were good, also the raft adventure. It was a little hard to read so much about being captured by the Japanese but I did it.

I would have liked it if there had been more time spent in the book about Louie's later years but that would have made this book even longer than it was. However, I do love it when authors wrap things up neatly in their books and this did the trick. ( )

A rich, compelling, and suspenseful story that reads like a novel. The human spirit is fragile, yet strong. ( )