Biography of Louis Zamperini The plane was losing altitude, the ocean blue as can be, and Louis Zamperini (a.k.a. Louie) hugged his body waiting as the plane sank. In WWII many planes went missing, but Louie thought he would never be one of them. The water hit him like a train, then crept in closer. Louie was stuck in the gun mount. According to Louie he went unconscious, and when he awoke he was free. Gasping for air, he swam up from the depths of the water chamber. When he arose from the water he saw his pal Phil, and a new guy Mac. The life rafts were floating away, and Louie took it upon himself to go and get it for them all. Now the U.S. would have no way of finding them. Louie was born on January 26th, 1917 in New York. His family came from Italy as immigrants. He was a troublemaker, and everything that was food, he wanted. He became an alcoholic at a very young age. …show more content…
He ran away fast from the homes he stole from. His brother Pete wanted him to be a runner, so he trained him. Louie became good at track like his brother. So Louie went for the local track team and made it. So Louie pledged that he would never drink again in his running career. He continued to improve his mile time, and he made his local high school team. He ran all four years and was very good. By the time he was a senior, colleges wanted him all over the country. Louie went to the college in his home town of Torrance. He was know as the “Torrance Tornado”. The 1936, Berlin Summer Olympics rolled around, and Louie wanted to go. He tried for the US team and made it. On the boat to Germany headed to the Olympics, Louie gained over six pounds from eating so much. He was not in shape to take home a medal, but he was not going to take last. Finally he waited, looking at the crowd, the world listening to his race. Bang! The starting pistol went off. He fell to the back of the running pack. The last lap bell went off, and he went faster than he could think. He started to gain on the pack of runners. He did good, but not good enough for a medal. He found strength deep inside of him and remembered, “That’s the one thing in sports. You don't give up; you fight to the finish.” He trained until the notice of the cancellation of the 1940 Tokyo Olympics because of World War II. Louie joined the Air Force, and became a bombardier. He did several bombings over the Pacific, and did search and rescue. During one of the searches, one of the engines failed on the B-24. The new mechanic hit the wrong engine reboot taking out two engines. That caused the airplane to crash. The water came into the body of the plane very fast that it tossed him in the gun mount. Louie went unconscious and when he awakes, he was free from the gun mount. He swam up to find his pal Phil and the new guy Mac. The life rafts were floating away so Louie swam to get the rafts. While they were stranded on the ocean, they ate birds, fish, and small sharks. They only drank water when it rained. One day a plane flew by, so they shot the flares and put the dye in the water. The dye was easier to see from a plane then a raft. The plane turned around only to spray bullets at them. They all sprung into the water hoping not to get hit. Louie had to help them back on to the raft. The plane made a second run and the group of men saw the Japanese symbol on the plane. The bullets began spraying again, but Louie was the only one in the water. When Louie arose from the water, he noticed that Mac and Phil had not been shot. The raft was not so lucky. They grabbed the patch kit, which is used to repair a raft with a hole in it. They repaired one of the rafts and the three men were crammed in a small raft. Mac died soon after the the shooting. On the 47th day of Louie’s journey, they were captured by a Japanese ship. He learned during his combat training that “every soldier should learn to survive on land, sea, and in the air.” Louie and Phil were transported to the Japanese owned Marshal Islands. While they were imprisoned there, they became skin and bones due to lack of food. They received a little biscuit everyday. They only contacted each other for a moment, because someone was guarding them at all times. The Marshal Island was known as Execution Island. From there they were transferred to Ofuna where they were not registered as POWs.
It was tough. At 6:00 AM they would get up for inspection. They would work out in all types of weather, including rain, snow and the scorching sun. They were also fed soup, but it was spoiled and nasty. The men there were starving and there was nothing they could do about it.. They were served a half a rations which contributed to their starving. The leader of the camp, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, or his nickname The Bird. He was evil. He hit people for doing nothing and then he would hit them for doing something. Louie was his favorite person to torture. He would hit, then regret and say sorry. Later he would hit him again, and not say sorry. Louie was selected to go into Tokyo, and say that he was doing good and that the conditions were as good as can be while imprisoned. They wanted him to do another broadcast that trashed the U.S. Louie refused and he was sent back to Ofuna. The Bird was promoted, and Louie and the others had a party. The new warden gave out the red cross boxes, instead of stealing them like The
Bird. Louie was transferred to the POW camp Omiri. It was a coal camp and it was dirty. The coal camp was to make the Japanese more wealthy. They were starved once again. Louie was starving he approached The Bird and asked if he could have full rations. Some people got full rations because they were doing more important jobs. The Bird and Louie agreed on something. A skinny goat could not die, or Louie would. The goat died because of how skinny it was. The bird made Louie carry a humongous piece of wood and not to drop it. He told the other guards that if he dropped the wood below his head to execute him. After hours of holding the wood, he became weak. Louie was a twig and the wood was as big as a tree. He held it above his head until the guards beat him down. He was back to half rations and starving. Continuing his journey, the guards told them that the war was over. So they invited all the prisoners into the water. Louie and the other prisoners at the camp thought they were all going to be killed in the water. Instead planes dropped down containers with food and cigarettes. They were free, but they did not get rescued for a couple of days. The war taught him something, that if you hate someone it is like a boomerang, it misses it’s target. When he went home, he met his girlfriend Cecilia Applewhite. They got married after the war. Louie became a heavy drinker. Later, he discovered that he was more religious than he thought he was. He said that “I reconnected with God.” So he went back to Japan to talk to all of his former guard. He went and saw all of them, and made peace with them except for The Bird, he refused to meet with Louie. After that, he stopped drinking. Louie had two children, Luke and Cissy. He would run in the 1998 Japan Olympics, as a torch carrier. He was still a great runner and did it at 80. He was still extremely fit that he was running miles. As he ran he saw thousands of smiling Japanese faces. The war was well over he just enjoyed himself. His wife Cynthia died in 2001 leaving just him and his children and grandchildren. Louie died July 2nd, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. Bibliography https://www.wikipedia.org/ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/louis_zamperini.html https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwii-NjPkOvLAhUmtYMKHWwGAJ0QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbergert6.blogspot.com%2F&psig=AFQjCNGI6fb6qzWauvE4sR-sqOydKOxUSA&ust=1459520747635640 http://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/heroes-of-running-louie-zamperini http://www.dailybreeze.com/general-news/20140731/torrance-bids-farewell-to-hometown-hero-louis-zamperini http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/louis_zamperini.html Unbroken: by Laura Hillenbrand
There are unexpected aspects of life in the camp depicted in “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlement” by Tadeusz Borowski. The prisoners were able to make very obvious improvements to their lived in the camp, without reaction by the SS officers; the market was even made with the support of the camp. The prisoners actually hoped for a transport of prisoners, so as to gain some supplies. The true nature of the camp is never forgotten, even in better moments at the camp.
him get back on track and Louie went on to become an Olympic athlete. Through mental
First of all, Louie showed his intelligence. Even though, he came from a poor family, he was very smart, maybe not in school, but he showed a lot of street smart. He knew how to break into houses, the school, and just about anything
The living conditions in the camp were rough. The prisoners were living in an overcrowded pit where they were starved. Many people in the camp contracted diseases like typhus and scarlet fever. Commonly, the prisoners were beaten or mistreated by
It was said that he thought he was born on July 4, 1900 (Armstrong 7). While Louis was still an infant his father, William Armstrong, abandoned his family. He spent the first years of his life living with his Grandmother since at the time his parents were going through a separation. At age 5, he moved into a home with his mother and sister, Beatrice, whom he called Mama Lucy. He grew up in a rough section of New Orleans. They were incredibly poor and did not have enough money. He would work different jobs just to take care of his family. Louis would work anywhere that he would be able to find work. He would sing on the street, which would result in his nickname, Satchelmouth that would be shorten to Satchmo. His nickname was a result of him having a wide
The ethics and rules of war have been a fiercely debated topic for centuries. One facet of war that is particularly divisive is the treatment of prisoners of war. This investigation compares the treatment of prisoners of war in the Andersonville and Rock Island prison camps during the American Civil War. Andersonville and Rock Island are widely regarded as the harshest prison camps of the Confederate and Union armies, respectively. The conditions of each camp will be examined and compared using factors such as nutrition, living arrangements, habits of camp leaders, and death rates.
Isolated and alone, many attempts from both sides, America and Japan, to force the feeling of invisibility on their POWs or Japanese-American internees. Separated from friends, denied human rights and on the brink of starvation demolishing their dignity. Louie Zamperini was a POW who was originally an Olympian athlete. He was taken captive by Japan while laying raft for over a month. Miné is a Japanese-American intern who had been condemned to an intern camp during World War Two. The experience that Louie and Miné have undergone are those that challenge the two in a very psychological way. However, they have recovered showing their resilience and how humans can recover even from scarring events.
Soon after Zamperini joined the forces one of the greatest tragedies in American history occurred: the bombing of Pearl Harbor. America was at war. Zamperini was quickly trained at Texas’s Ellington Field and earned close to perfect test scores. He graduated from Midland in 1942 as a second lieutenant. During his graduation when Zamperini said goodbye to his family one harrowing thought refused to dissolve from his mind: he might never see his family again. Zamperini was sent to an air base in Ephrata, Washington where he met his soon-to-be best friend and pilot, Russell Allen Phillips, a quiet Hoosier who Zamperini would refer to as Phil. Shortly after meeting Phillips Zamperini had an entire crew and a plane that the men referred to lovingly as, “the flying coffin.” The close-knit crew would later give their plane the proper name “Super
Louis Armstrong was born to William and May-Ann Armstrong, on August 4, 1901; although it is rumored he was born on July 4, 1900. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana where as he went back and forth between his 'grandmother’s house and his mother’s house. He had on sister named Beatrice who was just two years younger than him who he looked after as a young child. When he was seven he begin singing on the street for a little money with his friends and that is where he got his nickname “Satchelmouth” which was later changed to “Satchmo” because of his smile. While playing in the street he met a trumpeter by the name of Bunk Johnson who taught him things he knew about music and the trumpet. In his memoir he said, “But somehow all that jive didn’t faze me at all, I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn” (Armstrong). Trouble didn't meet Mr. Armstrong until 1912 during a New Year’s Eve celebration. Louis Armstrong fired a pistol into the air and was immediately arrested and he spent the night in a jail cell. He was sentenced to a Colored Waif’s House, where he stayed for 18 months.
Living conditions for Nazi prisoners were over crowded. They had to sleep in unsanitary wooden and brick bunks with several others. Prisoners were given a curtain amount of time to use the facilities with no privacy. With little water they had to clean themselves the inmates lived in constant filth. The Nazi’s didn’t care how bad the weather was, the prisoners had to wait long hours during rolls call. Even the dead had to present during roll call. After roll call prisoners were marched to where they would be working at for the day. Some worked in factories, while others worked outside. Hours later they were marched to camp for another roll call.
They were kicked out of their homes, shoved into cattle cars, killed, and made to work in a concentration camps and many other terrible things. The worst of all, they were experimented on. The following pages are going to tell you how the concentration camps were built, who ran the experiment camps. Also about the experiments and what the effects were.
How many people did Japan kill in world war two, Japan killed approximately six million people for just one war. Well Louie’s life was pretty bad as a youngster do to the fact that he was always picking fights or stealing something and hiding it. As he got older he had help from his brother that would put him on the track for fame and Louie would try to make something good come out of it. As world war two had ended he took a spiral down, from being in the prison with the bird and started drinking, but then he remembered his time on the raft, that had made him see how different the world could be, and how glorious it was. Since determined and daring were some of Louie Zamperini’s most distinguishable traits that he had from the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, these traits were throughout all of his life and were in most things he did as well.
Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana to William Armstrong and Mary Albert (“Who is”). His father abandoned him shortly after his mother and him separated when Louis was five, and his mother would turn to prostitution so he mostly lived with his maternal grandmother and uncle (Biography). In 1913,
Louis Zamperini was beaten, tortured, abused, and survived the impossible, and still remained unbroken. Louis Zamperini was born January 26, 1917 in Olean, New York. He grew up in Torrance, California. He was a young Juvenile delinquent. He was a smoker by age five and a drinker by age eight. He also stole anything and everything he wanted too.