In WWII, most deaths in the AAF were from non-battle situations such as accidents and disease. One statistic shows that between November 1, 1943, and May 25, 1945, 70 percent of men killed in action actually died from aircraft accidents. Most men did not actually die in a combat situation. Because of these airplane accidents many men did not die in the crash died in a life raft from starvation and dehydration as they drifted aimlessly over the Pacific Ocean. The men that lived through the crash and survived on a raft just to be captured by the Japanese were put in POW camps for the remainder of the war. One of these men is Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete and track star from Torrance, California. His plane went down due to a malfunction …show more content…
with the engines and he survived on a life raft for 47 days until he was found by the Japanese and kept in POW camps for two years until the wars end. In Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louis Zamperini is admirable because of the journey that he had to endure, the lessons that his stories tell, and his survival through the terrible things that happened in the POW camps. Louis Zamperini is an admirable person because he had and incredibly strong will and he survived through some of the most difficult things a person can go through. To name a few of his achievements; he went to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, survived the bombing raid of Nauru, survived on a life raft for 47 days, and survived two years of torture in Japanese POW camps. Throughout all of this he never let himself give up or break to the will of others. He lost friends, family, and his dignity in his incredible story of survival but he never once let himself be broken. A quote from the book shows his strong will, “Until all he knew was a single thought: He cannot break me” (Hillenbrand 296). This quote is great in showing how he, at his lowest moment, only thought about not breaking to the Bird. He knew that if he gave the Bird the satisfaction of breaking to him, that it would be all over. Not because the Bird would kill him, but because he would have nothing left in him to live. Another quote to show how he is admirable is, “Louie and Phil completed their thirty-fourth day on the raft”(Hillenbrand 165). This quote shows how Louis and Phil had such a strong will and motivation to live that they survived for 47 days on a life raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no food or supplies. It also shows how he survived in such harsh conditions for so long and still it did not break his will. Louis having a strong will and being able to survive through some of the extreme situations that he went through is part of the reason why he is so admirable. The story of Louis Zamperini is packed full with moments of strength and endurance. The lessons that stand out the most are to be resilient and to never give up. Him being resilient and never giving up is essential to him being admirable because if he had just let himself die on the raft or let himself be broken then no one would think of him as an admirable person. Louis has said that, “A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain”(Hillenbrand 34). This is a great example to show that if you give your everything and believe that you can then you can do anything. He says this to motivate himself and it is also an underlying theme in the book as he takes all of this pain and suffering throughout his journey and in the end he comes out famous and a hero. Another quote is, “Sickened and starving, his will a fraying wire, Louie had only the faint hope of the war’s end, and rescue, to keep him going”(Hillenbrand 286). This quote ties to both resilience and never giving up because it shows that when he was at his weakest he kept his will to live alive by the “faint hope of the war’s end”. He never gave up even when the only reason not was the slight chance that he would be saved and that shows how much of an optimist he is but it also show how much resilience and will to live that he possesses. The life lessons that his story has told are essential to him and his story being admirable. The last reason that Louis Zamperini is admirable is because he was able to endure the countless beatings and torture that he went through at the Japanese POW camps.The POWs at the camps were given minimal rations and were beaten almost non-stop for almost no reason other than the fact that the guards wanted to.
Louis had it harder than most others as the “Bird”, one of the most erratic and evil men he would ever meet, targeted him because of his strong will and stubbornness. The “Bird” would beat him almost every day for even looking at him wrong. Something that one of the POWs has said about the Bird is, “He was absolutely the most sadistic man I ever met”(Hillenbrand 237). This quote that is talking about the Bird shows that the man that hated Louis the most was also one of the worst people that Louis would ever meet. Louis was so scared of him that when he was transported to another POW camp and saw that the Bird was the commanding officer there he fainted. Another quote to emphasize the pain and suffering that Louis went through is, “But on Kwajalein, the guards sought to deprive them of something that had sustained them even as all else had been lost: dignity. This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind”(Hillenbrand 182). This quote shows how after the guards had took everything from Louis the only thing left was his dignity and if they took then there would be nothing left in Louis that would have been able to really be alive. Louis enduring these beating and keeping his dignity through it all is extremely difficult and only adds to the admiration that he has already earned from the previous quotes. Louis’ ability to survive and remain unbroken in his will and spirit is very admirable and is a big part of why his story is so
inspirational. Louis Zamperini in Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken is an extremely admirable person because he had to go through extremely tough situations in his journey, the lessons one can get from his experiences, and that he was tortured and beaten extensively in the POW camps. This book is a very good read and anyone who enjoys history and stories of survival would love this book.
I agree with the statement that Louie was as much a captive as he’d been when barbed wire had surrounded him after the war. The following quote was taken from chapter 39 of Unbroken. “It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the war was over” (386). From this quote, we can see that Louie was struggling with vengeance. Although the war was over in 1945, it toke Louie almost five years to say that the war was over for him because of the hatred and thought of revenge Louie undergo after the war. This is one of the reasons why I agree with the author’s choice to include the post-war years and explore this story of obsession for vengeance. Putting Part V into the book not only not take away the theme of survival,
On November 28, 2004 at about 10:00 a.m. mountain standard time, a Canadair (now Bombardier) CL-600-2A12 (Challenger 600), tail number N873G, crashed into the ground during takeoff at Montrose Regional Airport (MJT), Montrose, Colorado. The aircraft was registered to Hop-a-Jet, Inc., and operated by Air Castle Corporation doing business as Global Aviation. (Insert Here)The flight was operating under Part 135 Code of Federal Regulations. The captain filed the flight under an IFR Flight plan. Of the six passengers on board, three died from fatal injuries and the other three sustained major injuries. The aircraft was totaled due to the impact with the ground and a post-crash fire.
America was not the only one who suffered casualties during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan lost five midget submarines and nine of the men who piloted the small, war submersibles. The tenth man, Ensign Sakamaki, became our first Japanese WWII prisoner of war. Jap...
You would think with everything that Zamperini went through he would be able to get through anything and everything, right? Wrong, even after the war he could not conquer his fight with alcohol or depression (Etheridge). Actually everything got worse for Louis after the war. He struggled with P.T.S.D. which made his depression even worse causing him to hurt many of his personal relationships. To help deal with his problems, depression, and other things in his life he would go out and drink, and drinking then became even more of an obsession and a problem in his life. Louis could not beat this fight, and people thought that he never would until one day his wife forced Louis to go and hear Billy Graham speak. Zamperini wanted none of it, the first time he went he stormed out thinking he would never return, but amazingly he went back one time and that transformed his life forever. Louis hears many verses quoted by Billy that show him of God’s forgiveness that He has for everyone. Hearing this, Zamperini remembers back to the day he promised he would devote his life to God, if God let him live. In that moment Louis decided to give his life to our Savior Jesus Christ. “I knew I was through getting drunk,” Zamperini said. “I knew I was through smoking, and I knew I’d forgiven all of my guards including The Bird. Never dawned on me again that I hated the guy” (Zamperini as qtd. in After
bombers initiated the first bombing of the island. The bombings by the Japanese continued until December 23, when under continuous shelling, the Americans, under U.S. Navy Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham, were finally forced to surrender. Although the Japanese finally took the island, they incurred heavy losses. Three cruisers and one transport sustained heavy damage, two destroyers and one patrol boat were sunk, while 820 Japanese soldiers were killed, with another 333 wounded. In contrast, American military casualties included 120 killed, 49 wounded, with two missing in action.
19 February 1945 marked the beginning of one of the fiercest and bloodiest; and more decisively, the most strategically important battles fought during World War II. A total of 6,821 U.S. Marines had lost their lives, along with 19,217 wounded over the five-week span of the battle for Iwo Jima. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the island, only 212 were taken prisoners. “Iwo Jima was the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the overall American casualties (killed and wounded) exceeded those of the Japanese, although Japanese combat deaths were thrice those of the Americans throughout the battle (O'Brien, 1987).”
Allen, Thomas B. Remember Pearl Harbor: American and Japanese Survivors Tell Their Stories. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2001. Print.
World War II was one of the deadliest military conflicts in history. There were many different battles that took place within this war; some more important than others. World War II began once Germany’s new dictator, Adolf Hitler, decided that he wanted to gain power for Germany and for himself. One of Hitler’s first moves in power was invading Poland on September 1, 1939. Many other countries became involved in this war because of the alliance system. The two sides during this war were the Allies and Axis powers. German, Italy and Japan were on the Axis powers; France, Britain, and the United States were on the Allies. Germany first began with the Blitzkrieg tactic meaning “lightning war”. This tactic is based on speed, surprise and was the most popular tactic. It is set up with military forces based around tanks which are supported by planes and infantry. The Blitzkrieg tactic lead to air wars with airplanes between countries. All of the countries were allowed to participate in the air wars but the four main countries were United States, Japan, Britain, and Germany. During the 1920’s and 1930’s airplanes grew in size and structure giving them more power, and making planes more effective. Planes made it easier to drop bombs, or plan attacks. All of these countries fought over air superiority. Air superiority is the position in which the air force has control over all of the air warfare and air power of the opposing forces. Germany began with air superiority but they lost it when Britain defeated them at the Battle of Britain. Gaining control over the air is a very big advantage because it is easier to plan an attack on an opposing country. All of the countries relied on their aircrafts during this war. The issue about the use of...
The total men killed were estimated to be around 9,000, while approximately 8,000 of the mariners were killed at sea, and 12,000 wounded. The number of POW's where approximately 663 and only 66 died as prisoners in camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported. Only 31 ships vanished without a trace to watery graves. Since the end of the war it has been calculated that one in twenty-six mariners that served aboard merchant ships during WW II died in the line of duty. The casualties were kept secret during the war to keep any information about success or failure from the enemy, also to help attract and keep mariners at sea.
In 1940, Louis enlisted in the Army Air Corps and the Olympics for that year were cancelled. He became a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator and went on a mission to find a pilot whose plane had gone down.(Andrews) While over the Pacific Ocean, Louis’s plane had a mechanical failure in two of its engines and crashed. Of the eleven men who were on the plane, only three including Louis Zamperini survived.(editors) Louis and the other two airmen became stranded on two rafts for 47 days, surviving only on catching bird and fish and drinking rain water.(Jacobs) Finally after drifting over 2000 miles Louis and the pilot washed ashore, though the other airman died before they found land. Louis and the pilot were soon taken as prisoners of war by the Japanese on the island they washed up on. Louis was subjected to torture and was beaten during his time as a prisoner, and probably the only thing that kept him from being executed was that the Japanese found out he was a famous Olympic runner and used him as a propaganda tool.(Zamperini) Louis was in captivity for more than two years and pronounced dead by the U.S. military.(Andrews) After the war ended, Louis Zamperini was released in 1945 and returned to the United
320 airplanes storm over like a bundle of bees bombing pearl harbor with no warning. Nearly 2,500 deaths with many injuries and a giant step back in our naval forces. The U.S. wanted revenge according to Kennedy Hickman the President at the time Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a directive to attack Japan as quick as possible (Hickman 1). The attack ended up being a success but with some obstacles in the way.
A major victory for Allied forces occurred during the battle of Iwo Jima where United States Armed Forces fought for and captured the Island from the Japanese empire11. Iwo Jima is the only battle in World War Two by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the overall American Casualties exceeded those of the Japanese. During the Battle of Singapore, Allied forces in Singapore attempted to resist the Japanese during the invasion, unfortunately they surrendered to the Japanese on February 1942 and about one hundred thirty thousand Indian, British, Australian, American and Dutch Personnel became Prisoners of war and remained in the Philippines, captured by Japanese soldiers1. Prisoners of war often suffered and died during capture because of the abuse they received. They often starved and cached diseases and illnesses during captivity. Prisoners felt they had been abandoned by the country they once fought for. With the aid of Philippine Guerillas, Allied forces managed to raid a camp in Cabanatuan on January, 1945. More than five hundred prisoners of war received their liberty once again1. Bec...
It was a sunny beautiful day on the December 7, 1941, when citizens of the society were waking up to do their regular chores. This is the day that everyone will remember in the history of the world. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan happened in the early morning. The Americans were caught off guard by the Japanese fleet. The attack resulted in an outburst of horrifying deaths among Americans, including the loss of war fleets from the naval base. Resulting in Americans entering World War II, although they did not want to engage in World War II. “The “day that will live in infamy” ended with the deaths of over 2,400 sailors, Marines, and soldiers, along with the heavy damage and destruction of eight battleships.”1 After the devastating destruction on
One of the most renowned camp guards named Mutsuhiro Watanabe-more commonly known as "The Bird," by his captors-was infamous for senselessly beating prisoners and was so bad that some of the prisoners strategized a plan to kill him. How does everyone know this much about him? Simple, he had tortured Louie Zamperini every single day, making him the biggest part in Louie's World War II experiences. Upon meeting Zamperini, Watanabe had already despised Louie due to him being an Olympic athlete and he was absolutely ruthless with him. Louie had to hide himself from Watanabe to find a sense of safety. "'After the first few days in camp." Louie said, 'I looked for him like I was looking for a lion loose in the jungle.'" (247) But when The Bird found him, there was no turning back. On came the kendo sticks, baseball bats, and his own fists. But he was only one of many other savage guards. Sueharu Kitamura, "The Quack," or, "The Butcher," was next, but the way he got his nickname, "The Butcher," is very morbid. "Fascinated by suffering, he forced sick and injured captives to come to him for "treatment," then
Japanese-Americans lives were hard during World War II, when Japanese-Americans were being relocated. Japanese- Americans were treated cruelly. “...although Mine and Toku were American citizens, they were considered the enemy because of their Japanese heritage” (The Life of Mine Okubo). Even if Mine and Toku were American citizens, they were seen as Japanese. Thoughts about Japanese-Americans changed fast, first they were seen as the friends and then the enemy. Louie Zamperini was treated in a similar way. Louie Zamperini, one of the POWs, was sent to an internment camp. In the internment camp, Louie was treated cruelly by the Japanese, he did not get enough to eat, and also was beaten terribly by the Japanese.