January 27, 2023 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, this story was made into a 2014 motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie based on the 2010 non-fiction book by Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. While some of the most remarkable parts of Zamperini’s story were left out of the film, you will be hearing them told now by the man himself.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And we love our listeners stories. Send them to our
American Stories dot com. That's our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorite Our Next Story was made
into a twenty fourteen motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie,
(00:34):
based on the two thousand and ten non fiction book
by Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, a World War Two story of survival, resilience,
and redemption. While some of the most remarkable parts of
Zamperini's story were left out of the film, you will
be hearing them told now by the man himself. And
(00:54):
we're telling this story because on this day in nineteen seventeen,
Louise Amperin he was born. We'd like to thank the
folks at Vision Video for giving us access to the
footage you're about to hear. Let's take a listen. My
name is Louis Zamparini. I was born in January twenty six,
nineteen seventeen, in olean New York and moved to California
(01:18):
for my health. I had pneumonia and so ever since
I was two years old, I lived in Tornch, California,
just south of LA about twenty miles and I'm afraid
I was an incautiant conflict with the Tornch police. I
was a rascal, and I think it all started with me.
I couldn't speak English and the other because we're teasing me.
(01:41):
They wanted to hear me swear in Italian. You know,
these were your bullies, they call him today. And so
my dad got me some weights, punching bag and I
started getting in shape. And so then after a few months,
I started fighting back. When I started fighting back, they
stopped teasing me. But the meantime, I continued with my
errant way, and I had been dissipated. I started started
(02:03):
smoking when I was five, and during that time it
was talbition, but everybody made beer, wine and other things,
and we knew who made it, and when they're at
the movies on Saturday night, we would hijack the stuff.
And even if they knew we took it, they couldn't
turn us into the police or they'd go to jail.
And so that was my life as a teenager until
(02:25):
my bill. They got now on the track what they
call an interclass track meet, and the pain of exhaustion.
That's the worst. And that was it. No more running.
So a week later, we're having our first dual meet
with Narbonne Narbonne High School, and everybody insisted I represent
the school in this race, the same six hundred and
(02:47):
sixty yard run, and they finally talked me into it.
The first two runners from Narbonne had finished and the
third man was headed me about fifty yards ago. I
wasn't about the pass him, you know, until the stud
a thousand students from my high school started screaming, come on, Louis.
Well those were beautiful words to me because I had
(03:09):
no idea that anyone at all knew knew my name,
and here a thousand students of hauling, come on, Louis.
And that tasted pretty good. And now I just got
up a little adrenaline. I suppose my finally nipped this
guy at the table about six inches and came in third.
So after that, I thought about that recognition. That was
(03:30):
important to me, and I think it's important to all athletes.
The thing that inspires you and creates a desire to
go ahead and become a champion is a recognition. And
so that night I had to make a decision, and
that was, no doubt, the first wise decision of my life.
I decided to go all out to become a runner.
(03:52):
Considering my life, you think that was an impossibility, and
my family thought was an impossibility, my brother thought. But
I made up my mind and I became a from
at a trainer, no more dessert. I ran everywhere, no
hitch hiking, radondoing back four miles or most of them back.
I run like cald miles on a Saturday. I hit
the mountain, running around the lakes, jump on, and I
(04:13):
got so I liked it. I was not getting tired
anymore and fatigue, and enjoyed it, mainly not running around
the track, with running in the wilderness and jumping over streams.
I can remember on a number of occasions chasing deer
down the hill just for the proNT of it. And
so all that running, and the old days there were
no stop watchers around, so I had no idea how
(04:35):
fast I was running. I didn't even care. I just
started enjoying running, and finally at the end of the summer,
the first running race was the Far West Day at
You cross Country at us to La two miles about
one hundred and one runners. When the race was over,
I won by a quarter of a mile or over
a quarter and I couldn't believe it. I said, no,
(04:57):
I'm sure I cut a corner. I wouldn't chake credit
for a running. And the officials said, no, all the
hows are in. You passed every checkpoint and they said,
by the way, you all three records Class A, class B,
in class C, and you ran the two miles and
nine fifty seven, which was comparable to college running. And
I was sophomore in high school. So that did it.
(05:19):
I knew that hard work was the answer, and from
then on I never lost a race for three and
a half years. The best, the second best five thousand
meter runner in America was coming to California to run,
to draw a big crowd and so forth, and my
brother said, I want you to train. You got two weeks.
I should run against this guy. Now we had no
hopes of the Olympics, just running against him to see
(05:40):
how close you can get to a fellow who's going
to make the Olympics team, and that would have been
victory in itself. And I got. I caught him at
the table about two inches, so I knew that I
could beat him, the second best runner in America, and
this gave me the possibility of making the team. Now.
I didn't think about the team at that time until
(06:03):
the next day when I got a call from the
newspaper that the Olympic Committee had called Torns to tell
him that I qualified for the Olympic tryouts at Radnors Island,
New York. And again it wasn't important to win. I
made the team and Zatrelle and I'm on the ship.
Now was all these great athletes and they were all
(06:23):
my heroes. And I'm going around meeting all the athletes
and go off the ship at Hamburg and off to Berlin.
And then they took us into the most beautiful Olympic
village ever made, and it was gorgeous Spenston animals running
loose lakes, stormtroopers walking through and we'd give them the
hyle hit or salute with a big lap on our face,
(06:44):
and we knew we were kidding. They'd salute back. If
we said highlight up, they'd stay hyle hit or vice
di versta. And so they were a lot of fun.
And you're listening to the voice of the one and
only Louis Zamperini raised in Torrance, California, as he said,
a self proclaimed rascal in his youth. But hearing those
words come on Louie get chanted by students. That recognition, well,
(07:09):
that was all the fuel he needed. It lit a
fire in this young man, and he said, it was
the first wise decision in my life to become a runner.
When we come back, more of this remarkable life story,
Louis Zamparini's story here on our American Story. Here at
(07:31):
our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
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(07:53):
give a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com and we're back with
our American Stories. Let's return to Louis Zamparini and where
(08:14):
he left off with his arrival to Berlin, Germany to
compete as a nineteen year old distance runner in the
nineteen thirty six Summer Olympics, also known as the Nazi Olympics.
So I got him to shut my finals, and fortunately
I made the finals and the last lap congs and
I'm fifty yards behind the leaders. Something my brother had
(08:37):
taught me when I was you should complain about the
third lap of the mile being tired. And he's well
toward the other runners. They're all human beings, they're all tired.
But think of it this way. You've got a lap
to goal about one minute. Isn't one None of the
pain worth a lifetime of glory. And I never forgot that.
So I opened up the last lap and I caught
(08:58):
the leaders coming down the home strap, so I did
come in with the leaders. They're doing so the coach
that you just ran your last quarter in fifty six seconds,
which was considered impossible for a distance runner, and that
evidently caught the attention of Adolf Hitler. He was there
every day. And I go back to my box, eye
from my shower and also comes over and says, Hitler
(09:21):
wants to meet you. First, he asked her my name.
I said, I didn't war anything, you know. He was
shaking hand of the gold medal. He said, well, he
wants to meet you. So I went over to him
when he has reached down, shook my hand and simply said,
the boy with awe. He said, oh, yeah, the boy
with the fast finish and numb with it. So that
the furor didn't mean anything. But my opinion of him
(09:41):
was the same opinion that Martin Lookman had and all
the others. You look like a comedian and the way
he acted, stopping his speak, pounding his legs, and face
a mustache and all that. So that was my opinion
on him. Well, the Games are over and we collected ubneirs.
All the Olympians did remind him of their Olympic trip.
(10:05):
And now I'm back home entering USC as a freshman,
and now in nineteen forty tolkiell Olympics. We're all aiming
for that, and suddenly we get the announcement headlines of
papers the Olympics are canceled. Well, it was quite a blow,
you know, adults, Billy couldn't understand it. For for a
(10:26):
kid who has been aiming for four years for one
race and you're going to hit your peak of your
life at that particular year, that was hard to take
until Pearl Harbor was hit, and of course we forgot
all about being athletes, and like all other Americans who
were one mind of one cord, one purpose, get in
(10:47):
the war, quickly, get it over with as soon as possible. However,
I did run in Hawaii to keep in shape. And
even though General Arnoland, charge of the Air Force, through
a friend, he was a friend of mine indirectly, but
they wouldn't allow me to go back because our bomb
group was a special bomb group and experimental. We were
the first to use the heaviest bomb of the warfare,
(11:09):
dive bombing. So we had a lot of missions up
and down the Marshall and Gilberts bombing making and Chiragold,
Woji and all those islands. And now we had a
few local search missions looking for submarines. And then we
came back and after a mission, you get a couple
of days off and we're heading for the main gate
on the way to honoluluin and the operations officers come
(11:32):
skitting up in the jeep and says, we just got
a report at each twenty five has gone down two
hundred miles north of Palmyra. Now the cloud cover broken's
houser is a thousand feet that's our search mission height
and swinging hereund here, and they're looking for debris in
the water lightcraft, anything we could find. And so many
(11:53):
of the RPMs dropped on one motor and oil pressure
to zero, and the pie immediately called the new engineer,
and he was so excited to do his job. He
came up and nervously feathered the wrong motor and all
this plane could not fly it normally on four motors.
He couldn't get off the ground of the bomb load.
(12:15):
It was the green Hornet was a lemon and with
one motor, Alpha plane was having trouble. And now when
he feathered the wrong motor, the plane just healed over
and went down left wing first forty five degrees at
the water and exploded. The pilot tail gunner were fortunately
blown three of the wreckage. And then at the tail
(12:36):
snapped off the control wires, which are heavy wires that
are springing. So when the wires bake, they coiled up,
and so when they snapped, the wires coiled around the tripod.
I'm in the middle. I can't get loose. Now with
the wires, there's no hope of situation. And so I
just thought, well, this is it, this is it. I'm dead,
(12:56):
and so I started sinking. My ears popped and that
usually happened around twenty five thirty feet. And then as
I sat deeper something I never had happened before. I
felt like someone in the scius with a sledgehammer. And
then I lost consciousness, and of course I'm thinking, I'm
(13:17):
still thinking, so the pressures start to be getting greater,
and when I then I lost consciousness and there for
some un norm ring I'm cautious again. I'm free, I'm
loosening from that section of the ship. I'm fairly around
my arms trying to find something to grab onto and
fortunately my USA rain which was on this finger, was
(13:38):
bearing the white stars still there snagged onto the waste window,
and I knew that was a waste window by the field.
I grad wolf snail at hand, watched my back out
of the window and plaited my life jacket and talk
to the surface, and there I saw my two buddies
who are now hanging onto a gas tank. They were
both in a state of shock, screaming help, and the
(14:00):
pilot's head was bleeding profusely with a tot eytery and
there's no way I can help them. If I swim over,
they help them, we're all dead. But I saw a
life raft that had ejected from the play automatically, and
so there's one hundred foot cord dragging behind the life raft. Well,
I'm trying to swim to the life raft with shoes
on clothes, and it's impossible even in a swimsuit. I
(14:21):
couldn't have caught that life that the curse was that vicious.
But as I almost gave up swimming, the cord was
robbed on my face. I couldn't see it in my water,
and I grabbed the last two or three feet. I
reeled in the raft and I got to the pilot
co pilot pulled him aboard the three I took two
(14:43):
T shirts, made us wet conquest, put on the cuts,
tied it with the other T shirt very tightly so
it wouldn't breathe anymore, and I laid him back. And
then I started thinking about that escape. That really bugged me.
And I kept thinking of any kind of a logical
answer from the I escape, and I just couldn't find one,
so I gave up thinking about it. Instead, I started
(15:05):
praying and thanking God for spraying my life. Well, my
buddies saw this, they start to pray with me, and
then it wasn't long after that the tail gunner panicked
and began to scream and set me dawn on him.
What happened. We're all gonna die, said, I said, mac
nobody's gonna die. We're gonna die older, I said, mac
Nobody's gonna die. And then I told him to shut up.
(15:27):
I said, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna make
a report on you because to the military when we
get back. And he still kept screaming. So I tried
to use child psychology on him, and that didn't work.
So I thought I'd give him a double shock, and
this is the last resort of good shock treatment. So
I turned my back on then I came around with
the back of my hand and cracked him hard across
(15:48):
the face. He laid back in the raft contempt and
he was okay for maybe five days or a week,
and then I had to do it again. But it
always seemed to work, and he never dived it. I
just laid back and to enjoy it. So our menual,
of course now is for the next forty seven days
is what birds, fish and water we could catch, and
(16:09):
a course the virgin they fish we simply ate raw.
Three albatross, well, we actually caught four album and we
caught the first only caught we just ripped it open
and the smell was enough to throw it overboard. The
second only caught is that we got to eat some
part of it, you know, and so we took the breast.
We tried to take a bite out of the breast
for piece and try to chew it up and fallow.
We just barely swallowed one mouthballing again we where we
(16:32):
strew it overboard and used parts of it to bait,
and we did catch a small fish we divided bad
three ways and that wasn't bad raw fish. And then
a lot of time went by before we got another albatross,
none at all. Yeahs. Another albatross we opened up and
maya was like a hot budge funny with nuck on it.
We ate everything, eyeball. And what a story you're hearing,
(16:55):
Louis Zamperini tell Hitler wants to meet you. He was
told after that last final burst of speed. And by
the way, he did not tell the story here of
him seizing the Nazi flag and stealing it and taking
it home. That's a heck of a story. We couldn't
tell every bitten part of this story. But he did it,
(17:16):
and he did it because well why not. He was
still well a rascal. In the end, he goes to
usc he wants to compete in the nineteen forty Olympics.
That doesn't happen, They're canceled. Then comes Pearl Harbor. His
life has changed. He takes on dangerous missions and soon
finds himself stranded in the Pacific with a few buddies
(17:38):
forty seven days, hanging on for dear life to be rescued.
When we come back, more of this remarkable life story
the voice of Louis Zamperini from the grave, born on
this day in nineteen seventeen. Here on our American stories,
(18:08):
and we returned to our American stories and to Louis
Zamparini's story. The year is nineteen forty one. While serving
as Obama deer on a search and rescue mission in
the B twenty four Liberator in the Pacific, Zamperini's plane
experienced mechanical difficulties and crashed into the ocean. Let's pick
up when we last left off before we went seven
(18:31):
days without water. On the twenty seventh day, we heard mortars.
He could imagine our shipment. We shot players through whatever
you guy in the ocean plickered our mayors. The plane
came down and through lords. They came towards us. We
had our shirts off, you know, waving our shirts, chears
in our lives more. We're going to be with the
(18:51):
marine tonight on Palmyra and then machine gunning. Water splashed off,
you know, coming out of and just mississ And then
I saw the red circle I know was a Sally bomber,
which was comparable to our beach twenty five. And so
that went on. They straight was for about thirty minutes.
I was in the water with two sharks while the
other two stayed in the raft. And every time I
(19:12):
came up, I knew they were dead, but they were alive,
and they weren't touched, missed by an eighth of an inch.
Quarters happens. And this was just unbelievable. And I'm in
the water with two sharks, and of course I'm taught
how to abate sharks. The last resort is straight on
the stay there, they'll come up surely they'll stop size
you up and then they'll come at you. And you
(19:33):
got plenty of time to get your hand up there
and catch them on the end of the nose, and
they usually just take off. And that worked. But after
about thirty minutes we decided we were in a hopeless situation.
The raft is now a wrinkled laying flat in the water.
There's no chance. We got to pretend we're dead. So
we pretend we were dead, and the plane evidently bypass
(19:55):
us that round, but made a big circle, and we
thought they were going back to base, but they decided
on one more run, and this time as they came
directly on course. There's times that are off course. I
looked out of the corner of my eye and I
saw the bombay door open out of artoss it. They
dropped the depth charge. There was a canister. Now we
(20:15):
dropped bombed on subday. If they dropped the canister and
it lit about fifty feet away, which would have killed us,
but the canister was improperly armed and sank to the
bottom harmlessly. They did turn around then and leave us
a bore weather relief, and then we had to start
pumping that raft with sharks around and we're right level
(20:37):
with the water, were pumping like matt taking turns, and
barely got the raft up again. And now the holes
about the size of a twenty two hole. You'd as
a seven point seven millimeter, I think. And if you
saw the inner tube full of holes in the swimming pool,
it would not sink the way. That was our situation
(20:57):
there as we saddle back in the raft after eight days,
which took us about eight days to get the reft
decently patched Stubb and then the only real big storm
we had during the entire time, and it was monsters.
The ways were like twenty five to forty and that
was far more frightening than the Japanese airplane and far
more fighting than the sharks. And we survived that. But
(21:21):
I should say the two of us survived that the
tail gunn had died on the thirty third day, and
we buried him a seed and I saw the next
air courts. There are big swells and we're on top
of the slower. I see lamb for the first time,
and we knew we were going to drip into the island,
but we also knew that these were held by the Japanese,
so we had to be real careful and try to
find a Jservia island. And we were about to land
(21:43):
on one island when the Japanese patrol books came around
a point as followed us, and you know, you got
about twenty five guys was rifles aimed at you. One
guy the machine gone. You know, we were so bushed
that we couldn't really laugh, but inside we were laughing.
Then they threw us a rope and pulled us aboard.
We couldn't even crawl that week, and shot us on
(22:08):
the deck of the ship. And here's with a pestle
in the face. But they did get us a drink
of water and a biscuit. They were taking the Wolgi
in there waiting at thirty koldout I don't know sixty
five pounds, so I lost almost one hundred. And there
we were treated decently. They pulled the raft out of
the from the boat and counted the whole forty eight holes,
(22:30):
and I told him, I told him the day, the
twenty seventh day on the raft, the date that the
Japanese pilot straight as he should be able to find
out who that pilot was or Japanese pilot wouldn't do that,
but he did it, so they wouldn't accept that even
with the evidence. Two days later, we're told we're going
aboard a steamer heading for another island, and after you
(22:53):
leave this island, we cannot guarantee your life. So we're
heading for a quads and we knew through the scal
but that it was considered an execution island. We were blindfolded.
The ocean forty seven eighths out there. All you saw
was that endless sky, and the Pacific Ocean is what
(23:15):
sixty five million square a mile of the endless ocean.
Now I'm blindfolded, and when I'm inside that's cell, which
is two pieces wide by six feet deep and six
feet long, they take my blind poles off. Mis just
jumped all over the player. I couldn't believe where I was,
and this had a terrible effect on that I just
in the corner of that stall. I just sat there
(23:35):
and look at my skeletul fame and just started to cry.
And you know, here I am. Two months ago, I
was a vigorous athlete and here I am a skeleton.
And then our new guard came on duty and after
about a week and he simply looked in and said,
(23:56):
you christianed me Christian. It's all they can say. Well
in Japan at that time, who didn't admiss you as Christian?
Not in Japan? And of course I thought I was nice,
love me Christian Christian. So we start a chat on paper,
we draw a picture for the name to him. So forth,
and two days later he got his monthly candy rash
(24:16):
and shared it with me. Unbelievable. H. Every day, of
course we in the morning we would think about execution,
will just be the morning? Will list be the morning?
And then h and also came on one day and said,
you will go to Yokahamas Prisiness war on the Japany
with the Japanese sleep up to secret tamp in the
(24:37):
hilt of old Puna. And there I'm shubbed into a
room and told her stand weep for the orders. And
so I stand there. I see the back of the
man's head and then he turns along man's back in
the chair, looked at him, laughs, and he didn't have
(24:57):
to say remember me. I know him well at USC
for three and a half years, James Sasaki and Ioway says,
I came back to Japan after USC and became Admiral Sasaki,
a civilian rank of admiral ahead of all interrogation all
over Japan ninety one, putting account and we talked about USC,
(25:22):
the making an eight doctress on the campus. He was
talking about that kind of fu Chile. He weren't getting it,
and then he said, well, we'll see each other from
time to time. They called him Jimmy. Jimmy Sasaki had
a high fixtancy transmitter just offer towards Boulevard, a short
distance from the Edison substation where he made broadcast daily
(25:43):
to the Japanese government. Then they said he left my
boat two days before or raid by the FBI and CIA.
I'm finally transferred to what they called headquarters Table Morey
between Alma, Tokyo on a man made island, and there
I met the nightmare of my life, the bird. I
come in there. He lines us up going by and
(26:05):
looked at me, and I couldn't look in his eye
that looked away, and he said, why are you don't
look at my eye? By So I'm knocked down. I
get up knocked down again. So I'm pushed out every
day for the first ten days, and I knew who
the rash was us for sure, and so he was
thesh old, brutal. The other guys we gave him by
all filthy names. He didn't give him a filthy family,
(26:27):
simply call him the bird. But if he did find
out they're scouted, but that were named him a sertain name,
then we're really up for trouble. And you've been listening
to Louis Zamperini tell the story of his capture by
the Japanese forty seven days in the ocean. The sharks
were tough, the gunfire from enemy Japanese planes was tough.
What was tougher is surviving a wicked storm with thirty
(26:50):
five foot plus waves. Then he's transferred to execution island.
He catches a glimpse of himself and all he saw
was a skeleton frame and he just started crying. Every
morning he thought about one thing, his execution. And then
he's transferred to another camp where he meets his tormentor
the bird. When we come back more of this remarkable
(27:13):
life story, The story of Louis Zamperini, born on this
day in nineteen seventeen. Here on our American stories, and
(27:37):
we return to our American stories and to Louis Zamperini's
story when we last left off. In his story, he
described a Japanese interment prison guard known as the Bird.
The Bird was so deranged that General Douglas MacArthur named
him as one of the most wonted war criminals in Japan.
(27:57):
Let's continue with Louis Zamperini. Now, he was a stun
of a wealthy family. He tunked out of officers schools.
They had him for officers, and I can remember when
we have a beach twenty nine rate to call all
Americans out, he separated the officers from the enlisted men,
and then he had all the lost rank and slisted
(28:18):
men just to shame us. Buck privates faced us and
each one had to punch us an offer down and
he wouldn't hit us hard. It'd hit us easy and
didn't needi it hit for the club. Hey hit us hard,
knock us down, get over with us. So we had
to take a full ball in the face, down on
the ground. And so that's the way he was. He
took it out all officers. Always officers got the punishment.
(28:41):
But about another week went by and I believe there
were six us having us lined up, put on a
train and now we're crossing in Tokyo. But see in
the meantime they had the big fire rate on Tokyo,
which we saw from our vanished point. We saw the
sky of glow all night and half the next day.
And to put on the train and we go like
(29:03):
to that chard ways and all we could safe for
miles nineteen square miles of charred you know, mamboo huts
or whatever, wooden shacks. But the only thing we were
able to identify were the hundreds of laid But the
Japanese did, they did like the Germans. Their factory was bombed,
but it didn't slawm down because the big factory in
the industrial complex at the point of Tokyo. They only
(29:27):
had part of their machinery there. The rest of it
was in the civilian homes. And I remember going to
the shoterhouse to pick up our meat, which was horse
guts in a wheel bowl. And I used to see
these transformers and I thought my got in through this
little house. I looked back and I'd see a laid,
great big twenty five thou laid, and they guys working
making parts and all down the street that it was
(29:49):
really strange to see. The only thing knockburn were all
those machines. And that was the reason Truman had the
fire bombing of Tokyo, was because that was the industrial
comm pledge. So I were going north twelve hours to
write you, and I gone on down to the ocean
to lect you. And we get to the prison compound.
(30:09):
We have to stand there to attention and wait for
further order. And we waited and watched the front door
of the guard shack, and whoever was in there was
making us wait purposely, and we waited and waited and waited,
and the door opened and I'll shuts the burden. Well,
my knees buckled. I just I just couldn't believe. I
just thought, you know, I'm a guide that never gives up.
(30:31):
But I got to the point I just thought, it's hopeless, hopeless.
I can't escape this guy. So I got back to attention,
and then I had to put up him all over again.
So then about eight days before the wars over, we
kept one of the guards came to me and and
(30:53):
said a sad thing happened in Japan city called Hiroshima.
Power broke out Nolan's allowed to go in its quarantine,
and man, we thought that was said. So the whole
nation of Japan knew that Hiroshima was a city quarantine
with collar. And then about eight days later were told
(31:16):
a pw on the roof, and we heard rumors about
the war being over it for two years, so it
didn't mean much, but we wouldn't believe until we saw
a TVF fly over the river and they saw all
the prigners in the river and they flashed on their
the red light and the radio man picked it up.
The wars over. So then we rushed up to the
(31:37):
compound and began to wave up a plane. He circled
and circle, then he dropped the red ribbon. On the
end of it was a candy bar with a bite
out of it and pack of sagas. Were two sagers gone,
and yet three hundred and fifty men got a pupper
cigarette and we all had a sugar of candy pretty
good that evening. He came back and we looked like
(31:57):
a body folly. It was a pair of navy pants
tied at the bottom on top and carding the cigarettes
and candy and Commander fitzhold of the gin of ear submarine.
The ranking officer. He opened the pants and right on
the top was a magazine and he just stood there
silently looking at that picture of the stomic bomb, because
(32:20):
we'd never heard of it, and he kept looking at it,
and the other officers walked up. We all looked over
his shoulder and looked at that picture. And then I
realized the date of the collar as Hiroshima at the
same dates will actually what happened with the bomb, and
the Japanese pulled the eyes over the general public by
chilling him up his collar. Us were the best thing
(32:41):
that could have done. So finally, the bird, two days
before we knew, actually knew the war was over. The
bird disappeared, and because we had a seventy pound walk
on the second floor right over the river and a rope,
we had a hidden away in the bulk of the building,
(33:02):
and we were going to grab him, tie the lock
on him, and throw him over into the river. That
was our intention. But he flew the coop, so we
didn't see him again. The other guards all started buying
the scraping and and we talked to our farm him
and we knew that family got home that weren't eating
too well, and typical American, we started giving the guards
(33:24):
food to take home to their children and stuff I
got candy. In fact, when the war was over, sleeping
in tenth on the way home, I still had nightmares
about the bird. I'm Italian. I have to have revenge,
and when he's torturing me and punishing me, the revenge
in my heart and my handshack hunted. I got him
by the throat, and that was in my dreams every night,
every night, every night I got home, it was the
(33:47):
same thing at home. I got married, I still had
the nightmares. In the meantime, I started drinking because of that.
But before I started drinking heavily, I started training for
the forty eight Olympics, and I did get in good shape.
And then when I had my knee give out, my
ankle and a muscle spasm or like an explosion in
(34:07):
my cap, I couldn't train anymore and I gave that up,
and that really hurt me. And Slush are drinking more
and more, and my wife decided shine for a divorce,
and somebody in our apartment house I was telling about
a fellow named Billy Graham. We never heard him. They
talked my wife into going down to hear Billy Graham.
(34:28):
He made a decision for the Lord. Came home that
night try to talk me into him, and I said,
cable way, fund, I don't want to hear any more
about religion. And because she said something that really struck
me in the heart, and that was and because of
my decision, I'm not going to get a divorce. So
that was good news. But the next day she was
all over man. I refused to go. Finally, they more
(34:50):
or less tricked me to going down to hear Billy
and there he's preaching, you know, for all of sin. Well,
I knew I was a center. Well, I didn't like
the idea of him remind him, and it just gave
give me the shoes to leave. I got mad, grabbed
my wife, put her home, and the next day should
go all over me again. And so I finally consented
on a return trip. And I said, well, when he
(35:14):
finishes his Shoman says everyhow head bowed, I'm getting out. Okay,
So back we went, and I kept pointing scripture from
the Bible, and now I knew what I should do,
but I didn't want to do it. And then as
I started to leave the camp, I started thinking back
on the raft. When our lives were spared, we did
(35:36):
pray morning, noon and night, and we paid constantly on
the raft. My prayer was always God saved my life,
and I'll seek you and serve you, and here I
am home alive. My prayers were answered, and they completely
turned my back on those promises. That hit me pretty hard.
Before I got to the aisle where I decided to
turn out, I stopped moment Harry made my decision, went
(35:59):
back to the pair room and made my confessional faith
in Christ, and there a miracle took place. My life
completely changed. I had a turn about. I knew that
I was true getting drunk, I knew it obviously for myself.
I knew I'd forgive them all my guards. I knew
I'd forgiven the bird. And I think proof for that
(36:19):
was at that night I didn't have a nightmare for
the first time. And it's been two and a half
years and I haven't sent the war, and I had
a nightmare every night and now from nineteen forty nine
so this day, I still never had a nightmare, or
even this by just ankling him a nightmare and So
when I met with the studio to make the movie
(36:41):
with the Universal, the producer was hearing all the things
that bird did. The mean I'm feeling at this meeting
like this, listening to these fellas talk. I finally he's
getting really up tight. And he jumped up and said, Louis, Louis,
how could you forgive that song? And so when I
stood up and I said, well, I can only give
you one verse in the Bible why I could forgive him. Therefore,
if any man being Christ, he is a new persia,
(37:03):
all things I'll passed away the whole all things will
become new. And hey looked at me. I didn't know
what he's going to do. And they rushed over and
grabbed me around the vast, picked me up and said
we're gonna make this a whole nature film. So I
thought that was pretty pretty need him there, joyish and
I'll mention any Christ. So that was the climash. That
was just beautiful. So I rushed my story and what
(37:26):
a voice you just heard? That is Louis Amporini from
the grave in heaven sharing his story for all to
hear about how Jesus saved his life. Made those nightmares
disappear and renewed his life and his marriage and his
special thanks to Greg Hengler as always for the editing
on that piece, and thanks to Vision Video. God saved
(37:48):
my life and I will seek and serve you, he
prayed on that boat. I turned my back on God,
but then I came to Christ. My life completely changed.
I forgave the bird my night. Mayors ended. Louis Emporini
born on this day in nineteen seventeen. Here on our
American stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And we love our listeners stories. Send them to our
American Stories dot com. That's our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorite Our Next Story was made
into a twenty fourteen motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie,
(00:34):
based on the two thousand and ten non fiction book
by Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, a World War Two story of survival, resilience,
and redemption. While some of the most remarkable parts of
Zamperini's story were left out of the film, you will
be hearing them told now by the man himself. And
(00:54):
we're telling this story because on this day in nineteen seventeen,
Louise Amperin he was born. We'd like to thank the
folks at Vision Video for giving us access to the
footage you're about to hear. Let's take a listen. My
name is Louis Zamparini. I was born in January twenty six,
nineteen seventeen, in olean New York and moved to California
(01:18):
for my health. I had pneumonia and so ever since
I was two years old, I lived in Tornch, California,
just south of LA about twenty miles and I'm afraid
I was an incautiant conflict with the Tornch police. I
was a rascal, and I think it all started with me.
I couldn't speak English and the other because we're teasing me.
(01:41):
They wanted to hear me swear in Italian. You know,
these were your bullies, they call him today. And so
my dad got me some weights, punching bag and I
started getting in shape. And so then after a few months,
I started fighting back. When I started fighting back, they
stopped teasing me. But the meantime, I continued with my
errant way, and I had been dissipated. I started started
(02:03):
smoking when I was five, and during that time it
was talbition, but everybody made beer, wine and other things,
and we knew who made it, and when they're at
the movies on Saturday night, we would hijack the stuff.
And even if they knew we took it, they couldn't
turn us into the police or they'd go to jail.
And so that was my life as a teenager until
(02:25):
my bill. They got now on the track what they
call an interclass track meet, and the pain of exhaustion.
That's the worst. And that was it. No more running.
So a week later, we're having our first dual meet
with Narbonne Narbonne High School, and everybody insisted I represent
the school in this race, the same six hundred and
(02:47):
sixty yard run, and they finally talked me into it.
The first two runners from Narbonne had finished and the
third man was headed me about fifty yards ago. I
wasn't about the pass him, you know, until the stud
a thousand students from my high school started screaming, come on, Louis.
Well those were beautiful words to me because I had
(03:09):
no idea that anyone at all knew knew my name,
and here a thousand students of hauling, come on, Louis.
And that tasted pretty good. And now I just got
up a little adrenaline. I suppose my finally nipped this
guy at the table about six inches and came in third.
So after that, I thought about that recognition. That was
(03:30):
important to me, and I think it's important to all athletes.
The thing that inspires you and creates a desire to
go ahead and become a champion is a recognition. And
so that night I had to make a decision, and
that was, no doubt, the first wise decision of my life.
I decided to go all out to become a runner.
(03:52):
Considering my life, you think that was an impossibility, and
my family thought was an impossibility, my brother thought. But
I made up my mind and I became a from
at a trainer, no more dessert. I ran everywhere, no
hitch hiking, radondoing back four miles or most of them back.
I run like cald miles on a Saturday. I hit
the mountain, running around the lakes, jump on, and I
(04:13):
got so I liked it. I was not getting tired
anymore and fatigue, and enjoyed it, mainly not running around
the track, with running in the wilderness and jumping over streams.
I can remember on a number of occasions chasing deer
down the hill just for the proNT of it. And
so all that running, and the old days there were
no stop watchers around, so I had no idea how
(04:35):
fast I was running. I didn't even care. I just
started enjoying running, and finally at the end of the summer,
the first running race was the Far West Day at
You cross Country at us to La two miles about
one hundred and one runners. When the race was over,
I won by a quarter of a mile or over
a quarter and I couldn't believe it. I said, no,
(04:57):
I'm sure I cut a corner. I wouldn't chake credit
for a running. And the officials said, no, all the
hows are in. You passed every checkpoint and they said,
by the way, you all three records Class A, class B,
in class C, and you ran the two miles and
nine fifty seven, which was comparable to college running. And
I was sophomore in high school. So that did it.
(05:19):
I knew that hard work was the answer, and from
then on I never lost a race for three and
a half years. The best, the second best five thousand
meter runner in America was coming to California to run,
to draw a big crowd and so forth, and my
brother said, I want you to train. You got two weeks.
I should run against this guy. Now we had no
hopes of the Olympics, just running against him to see
(05:40):
how close you can get to a fellow who's going
to make the Olympics team, and that would have been
victory in itself. And I got. I caught him at
the table about two inches, so I knew that I
could beat him, the second best runner in America, and
this gave me the possibility of making the team. Now.
I didn't think about the team at that time until
(06:03):
the next day when I got a call from the
newspaper that the Olympic Committee had called Torns to tell
him that I qualified for the Olympic tryouts at Radnors Island,
New York. And again it wasn't important to win. I
made the team and Zatrelle and I'm on the ship.
Now was all these great athletes and they were all
(06:23):
my heroes. And I'm going around meeting all the athletes
and go off the ship at Hamburg and off to Berlin.
And then they took us into the most beautiful Olympic
village ever made, and it was gorgeous Spenston animals running
loose lakes, stormtroopers walking through and we'd give them the
hyle hit or salute with a big lap on our face,
(06:44):
and we knew we were kidding. They'd salute back. If
we said highlight up, they'd stay hyle hit or vice
di versta. And so they were a lot of fun.
And you're listening to the voice of the one and
only Louis Zamperini raised in Torrance, California, as he said,
a self proclaimed rascal in his youth. But hearing those
words come on Louie get chanted by students. That recognition, well,
(07:09):
that was all the fuel he needed. It lit a
fire in this young man, and he said, it was
the first wise decision in my life to become a runner.
When we come back, more of this remarkable life story,
Louis Zamparini's story here on our American Story. Here at
(07:31):
our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but
they're not free to make. If you love our stories
in America like we do, please go to our American
Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little,
(07:53):
give a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com and we're back with
our American Stories. Let's return to Louis Zamparini and where
(08:14):
he left off with his arrival to Berlin, Germany to
compete as a nineteen year old distance runner in the
nineteen thirty six Summer Olympics, also known as the Nazi Olympics.
So I got him to shut my finals, and fortunately
I made the finals and the last lap congs and
I'm fifty yards behind the leaders. Something my brother had
(08:37):
taught me when I was you should complain about the
third lap of the mile being tired. And he's well
toward the other runners. They're all human beings, they're all tired.
But think of it this way. You've got a lap
to goal about one minute. Isn't one None of the
pain worth a lifetime of glory. And I never forgot that.
So I opened up the last lap and I caught
(08:58):
the leaders coming down the home strap, so I did
come in with the leaders. They're doing so the coach
that you just ran your last quarter in fifty six seconds,
which was considered impossible for a distance runner, and that
evidently caught the attention of Adolf Hitler. He was there
every day. And I go back to my box, eye
from my shower and also comes over and says, Hitler
(09:21):
wants to meet you. First, he asked her my name.
I said, I didn't war anything, you know. He was
shaking hand of the gold medal. He said, well, he
wants to meet you. So I went over to him
when he has reached down, shook my hand and simply said,
the boy with awe. He said, oh, yeah, the boy
with the fast finish and numb with it. So that
the furor didn't mean anything. But my opinion of him
(09:41):
was the same opinion that Martin Lookman had and all
the others. You look like a comedian and the way
he acted, stopping his speak, pounding his legs, and face
a mustache and all that. So that was my opinion
on him. Well, the Games are over and we collected ubneirs.
All the Olympians did remind him of their Olympic trip.
(10:05):
And now I'm back home entering USC as a freshman,
and now in nineteen forty tolkiell Olympics. We're all aiming
for that, and suddenly we get the announcement headlines of
papers the Olympics are canceled. Well, it was quite a blow,
you know, adults, Billy couldn't understand it. For for a
(10:26):
kid who has been aiming for four years for one
race and you're going to hit your peak of your
life at that particular year, that was hard to take
until Pearl Harbor was hit, and of course we forgot
all about being athletes, and like all other Americans who
were one mind of one cord, one purpose, get in
(10:47):
the war, quickly, get it over with as soon as possible. However,
I did run in Hawaii to keep in shape. And
even though General Arnoland, charge of the Air Force, through
a friend, he was a friend of mine indirectly, but
they wouldn't allow me to go back because our bomb
group was a special bomb group and experimental. We were
the first to use the heaviest bomb of the warfare,
(11:09):
dive bombing. So we had a lot of missions up
and down the Marshall and Gilberts bombing making and Chiragold,
Woji and all those islands. And now we had a
few local search missions looking for submarines. And then we
came back and after a mission, you get a couple
of days off and we're heading for the main gate
on the way to honoluluin and the operations officers come
(11:32):
skitting up in the jeep and says, we just got
a report at each twenty five has gone down two
hundred miles north of Palmyra. Now the cloud cover broken's
houser is a thousand feet that's our search mission height
and swinging hereund here, and they're looking for debris in
the water lightcraft, anything we could find. And so many
(11:53):
of the RPMs dropped on one motor and oil pressure
to zero, and the pie immediately called the new engineer,
and he was so excited to do his job. He
came up and nervously feathered the wrong motor and all
this plane could not fly it normally on four motors.
He couldn't get off the ground of the bomb load.
(12:15):
It was the green Hornet was a lemon and with
one motor, Alpha plane was having trouble. And now when
he feathered the wrong motor, the plane just healed over
and went down left wing first forty five degrees at
the water and exploded. The pilot tail gunner were fortunately
blown three of the wreckage. And then at the tail
(12:36):
snapped off the control wires, which are heavy wires that
are springing. So when the wires bake, they coiled up,
and so when they snapped, the wires coiled around the tripod.
I'm in the middle. I can't get loose. Now with
the wires, there's no hope of situation. And so I
just thought, well, this is it, this is it. I'm dead,
(12:56):
and so I started sinking. My ears popped and that
usually happened around twenty five thirty feet. And then as
I sat deeper something I never had happened before. I
felt like someone in the scius with a sledgehammer. And
then I lost consciousness, and of course I'm thinking, I'm
(13:17):
still thinking, so the pressures start to be getting greater,
and when I then I lost consciousness and there for
some un norm ring I'm cautious again. I'm free, I'm
loosening from that section of the ship. I'm fairly around
my arms trying to find something to grab onto and
fortunately my USA rain which was on this finger, was
(13:38):
bearing the white stars still there snagged onto the waste window,
and I knew that was a waste window by the field.
I grad wolf snail at hand, watched my back out
of the window and plaited my life jacket and talk
to the surface, and there I saw my two buddies
who are now hanging onto a gas tank. They were
both in a state of shock, screaming help, and the
(14:00):
pilot's head was bleeding profusely with a tot eytery and
there's no way I can help them. If I swim over,
they help them, we're all dead. But I saw a
life raft that had ejected from the play automatically, and
so there's one hundred foot cord dragging behind the life raft. Well,
I'm trying to swim to the life raft with shoes
on clothes, and it's impossible even in a swimsuit. I
(14:21):
couldn't have caught that life that the curse was that vicious.
But as I almost gave up swimming, the cord was
robbed on my face. I couldn't see it in my water,
and I grabbed the last two or three feet. I
reeled in the raft and I got to the pilot
co pilot pulled him aboard the three I took two
(14:43):
T shirts, made us wet conquest, put on the cuts,
tied it with the other T shirt very tightly so
it wouldn't breathe anymore, and I laid him back. And
then I started thinking about that escape. That really bugged me.
And I kept thinking of any kind of a logical
answer from the I escape, and I just couldn't find one,
so I gave up thinking about it. Instead, I started
(15:05):
praying and thanking God for spraying my life. Well, my
buddies saw this, they start to pray with me, and
then it wasn't long after that the tail gunner panicked
and began to scream and set me dawn on him.
What happened. We're all gonna die, said, I said, mac
nobody's gonna die. We're gonna die older, I said, mac
Nobody's gonna die. And then I told him to shut up.
(15:27):
I said, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna make
a report on you because to the military when we
get back. And he still kept screaming. So I tried
to use child psychology on him, and that didn't work.
So I thought I'd give him a double shock, and
this is the last resort of good shock treatment. So
I turned my back on then I came around with
the back of my hand and cracked him hard across
(15:48):
the face. He laid back in the raft contempt and
he was okay for maybe five days or a week,
and then I had to do it again. But it
always seemed to work, and he never dived it. I
just laid back and to enjoy it. So our menual,
of course now is for the next forty seven days
is what birds, fish and water we could catch, and
(16:09):
a course the virgin they fish we simply ate raw.
Three albatross, well, we actually caught four album and we
caught the first only caught we just ripped it open
and the smell was enough to throw it overboard. The
second only caught is that we got to eat some
part of it, you know, and so we took the breast.
We tried to take a bite out of the breast
for piece and try to chew it up and fallow.
We just barely swallowed one mouthballing again we where we
(16:32):
strew it overboard and used parts of it to bait,
and we did catch a small fish we divided bad
three ways and that wasn't bad raw fish. And then
a lot of time went by before we got another albatross,
none at all. Yeahs. Another albatross we opened up and
maya was like a hot budge funny with nuck on it.
We ate everything, eyeball. And what a story you're hearing,
(16:55):
Louis Zamperini tell Hitler wants to meet you. He was
told after that last final burst of speed. And by
the way, he did not tell the story here of
him seizing the Nazi flag and stealing it and taking
it home. That's a heck of a story. We couldn't
tell every bitten part of this story. But he did it,
(17:16):
and he did it because well why not. He was
still well a rascal. In the end, he goes to
usc he wants to compete in the nineteen forty Olympics.
That doesn't happen, They're canceled. Then comes Pearl Harbor. His
life has changed. He takes on dangerous missions and soon
finds himself stranded in the Pacific with a few buddies
(17:38):
forty seven days, hanging on for dear life to be rescued.
When we come back, more of this remarkable life story
the voice of Louis Zamperini from the grave, born on
this day in nineteen seventeen. Here on our American stories,
(18:08):
and we returned to our American stories and to Louis
Zamparini's story. The year is nineteen forty one. While serving
as Obama deer on a search and rescue mission in
the B twenty four Liberator in the Pacific, Zamperini's plane
experienced mechanical difficulties and crashed into the ocean. Let's pick
up when we last left off before we went seven
(18:31):
days without water. On the twenty seventh day, we heard mortars.
He could imagine our shipment. We shot players through whatever
you guy in the ocean plickered our mayors. The plane
came down and through lords. They came towards us. We
had our shirts off, you know, waving our shirts, chears
in our lives more. We're going to be with the
(18:51):
marine tonight on Palmyra and then machine gunning. Water splashed off,
you know, coming out of and just mississ And then
I saw the red circle I know was a Sally bomber,
which was comparable to our beach twenty five. And so
that went on. They straight was for about thirty minutes.
I was in the water with two sharks while the
other two stayed in the raft. And every time I
(19:12):
came up, I knew they were dead, but they were alive,
and they weren't touched, missed by an eighth of an inch.
Quarters happens. And this was just unbelievable. And I'm in
the water with two sharks, and of course I'm taught
how to abate sharks. The last resort is straight on
the stay there, they'll come up surely they'll stop size
you up and then they'll come at you. And you
(19:33):
got plenty of time to get your hand up there
and catch them on the end of the nose, and
they usually just take off. And that worked. But after
about thirty minutes we decided we were in a hopeless situation.
The raft is now a wrinkled laying flat in the water.
There's no chance. We got to pretend we're dead. So
we pretend we were dead, and the plane evidently bypass
(19:55):
us that round, but made a big circle, and we
thought they were going back to base, but they decided
on one more run, and this time as they came
directly on course. There's times that are off course. I
looked out of the corner of my eye and I
saw the bombay door open out of artoss it. They
dropped the depth charge. There was a canister. Now we
(20:15):
dropped bombed on subday. If they dropped the canister and
it lit about fifty feet away, which would have killed us,
but the canister was improperly armed and sank to the
bottom harmlessly. They did turn around then and leave us
a bore weather relief, and then we had to start
pumping that raft with sharks around and we're right level
(20:37):
with the water, were pumping like matt taking turns, and
barely got the raft up again. And now the holes
about the size of a twenty two hole. You'd as
a seven point seven millimeter, I think. And if you
saw the inner tube full of holes in the swimming pool,
it would not sink the way. That was our situation
(20:57):
there as we saddle back in the raft after eight days,
which took us about eight days to get the reft
decently patched Stubb and then the only real big storm
we had during the entire time, and it was monsters.
The ways were like twenty five to forty and that
was far more frightening than the Japanese airplane and far
more fighting than the sharks. And we survived that. But
(21:21):
I should say the two of us survived that the
tail gunn had died on the thirty third day, and
we buried him a seed and I saw the next
air courts. There are big swells and we're on top
of the slower. I see lamb for the first time,
and we knew we were going to drip into the island,
but we also knew that these were held by the Japanese,
so we had to be real careful and try to
find a Jservia island. And we were about to land
(21:43):
on one island when the Japanese patrol books came around
a point as followed us, and you know, you got
about twenty five guys was rifles aimed at you. One
guy the machine gone. You know, we were so bushed
that we couldn't really laugh, but inside we were laughing.
Then they threw us a rope and pulled us aboard.
We couldn't even crawl that week, and shot us on
(22:08):
the deck of the ship. And here's with a pestle
in the face. But they did get us a drink
of water and a biscuit. They were taking the Wolgi
in there waiting at thirty koldout I don't know sixty
five pounds, so I lost almost one hundred. And there
we were treated decently. They pulled the raft out of
the from the boat and counted the whole forty eight holes,
(22:30):
and I told him, I told him the day, the
twenty seventh day on the raft, the date that the
Japanese pilot straight as he should be able to find
out who that pilot was or Japanese pilot wouldn't do that,
but he did it, so they wouldn't accept that even
with the evidence. Two days later, we're told we're going
aboard a steamer heading for another island, and after you
(22:53):
leave this island, we cannot guarantee your life. So we're
heading for a quads and we knew through the scal
but that it was considered an execution island. We were blindfolded.
The ocean forty seven eighths out there. All you saw
was that endless sky, and the Pacific Ocean is what
(23:15):
sixty five million square a mile of the endless ocean.
Now I'm blindfolded, and when I'm inside that's cell, which
is two pieces wide by six feet deep and six
feet long, they take my blind poles off. Mis just
jumped all over the player. I couldn't believe where I was,
and this had a terrible effect on that I just
in the corner of that stall. I just sat there
(23:35):
and look at my skeletul fame and just started to cry.
And you know, here I am. Two months ago, I
was a vigorous athlete and here I am a skeleton.
And then our new guard came on duty and after
about a week and he simply looked in and said,
(23:56):
you christianed me Christian. It's all they can say. Well
in Japan at that time, who didn't admiss you as Christian?
Not in Japan? And of course I thought I was nice,
love me Christian Christian. So we start a chat on paper,
we draw a picture for the name to him. So forth,
and two days later he got his monthly candy rash
(24:16):
and shared it with me. Unbelievable. H. Every day, of
course we in the morning we would think about execution,
will just be the morning? Will list be the morning?
And then h and also came on one day and said,
you will go to Yokahamas Prisiness war on the Japany
with the Japanese sleep up to secret tamp in the
(24:37):
hilt of old Puna. And there I'm shubbed into a
room and told her stand weep for the orders. And
so I stand there. I see the back of the
man's head and then he turns along man's back in
the chair, looked at him, laughs, and he didn't have
(24:57):
to say remember me. I know him well at USC
for three and a half years, James Sasaki and Ioway says,
I came back to Japan after USC and became Admiral Sasaki,
a civilian rank of admiral ahead of all interrogation all
over Japan ninety one, putting account and we talked about USC,
(25:22):
the making an eight doctress on the campus. He was
talking about that kind of fu Chile. He weren't getting it,
and then he said, well, we'll see each other from
time to time. They called him Jimmy. Jimmy Sasaki had
a high fixtancy transmitter just offer towards Boulevard, a short
distance from the Edison substation where he made broadcast daily
(25:43):
to the Japanese government. Then they said he left my
boat two days before or raid by the FBI and CIA.
I'm finally transferred to what they called headquarters Table Morey
between Alma, Tokyo on a man made island, and there
I met the nightmare of my life, the bird. I
come in there. He lines us up going by and
(26:05):
looked at me, and I couldn't look in his eye
that looked away, and he said, why are you don't
look at my eye? By So I'm knocked down. I
get up knocked down again. So I'm pushed out every
day for the first ten days, and I knew who
the rash was us for sure, and so he was
thesh old, brutal. The other guys we gave him by
all filthy names. He didn't give him a filthy family,
(26:27):
simply call him the bird. But if he did find
out they're scouted, but that were named him a sertain name,
then we're really up for trouble. And you've been listening
to Louis Zamperini tell the story of his capture by
the Japanese forty seven days in the ocean. The sharks
were tough, the gunfire from enemy Japanese planes was tough.
What was tougher is surviving a wicked storm with thirty
(26:50):
five foot plus waves. Then he's transferred to execution island.
He catches a glimpse of himself and all he saw
was a skeleton frame and he just started crying. Every
morning he thought about one thing, his execution. And then
he's transferred to another camp where he meets his tormentor
the bird. When we come back more of this remarkable
(27:13):
life story, The story of Louis Zamperini, born on this
day in nineteen seventeen. Here on our American stories, and
(27:37):
we return to our American stories and to Louis Zamperini's
story when we last left off. In his story, he
described a Japanese interment prison guard known as the Bird.
The Bird was so deranged that General Douglas MacArthur named
him as one of the most wonted war criminals in Japan.
(27:57):
Let's continue with Louis Zamperini. Now, he was a stun
of a wealthy family. He tunked out of officers schools.
They had him for officers, and I can remember when
we have a beach twenty nine rate to call all
Americans out, he separated the officers from the enlisted men,
and then he had all the lost rank and slisted
(28:18):
men just to shame us. Buck privates faced us and
each one had to punch us an offer down and
he wouldn't hit us hard. It'd hit us easy and
didn't needi it hit for the club. Hey hit us hard,
knock us down, get over with us. So we had
to take a full ball in the face, down on
the ground. And so that's the way he was. He
took it out all officers. Always officers got the punishment.
(28:41):
But about another week went by and I believe there
were six us having us lined up, put on a
train and now we're crossing in Tokyo. But see in
the meantime they had the big fire rate on Tokyo,
which we saw from our vanished point. We saw the
sky of glow all night and half the next day.
And to put on the train and we go like
(29:03):
to that chard ways and all we could safe for
miles nineteen square miles of charred you know, mamboo huts
or whatever, wooden shacks. But the only thing we were
able to identify were the hundreds of laid But the
Japanese did, they did like the Germans. Their factory was bombed,
but it didn't slawm down because the big factory in
the industrial complex at the point of Tokyo. They only
(29:27):
had part of their machinery there. The rest of it
was in the civilian homes. And I remember going to
the shoterhouse to pick up our meat, which was horse
guts in a wheel bowl. And I used to see
these transformers and I thought my got in through this
little house. I looked back and I'd see a laid,
great big twenty five thou laid, and they guys working
making parts and all down the street that it was
(29:49):
really strange to see. The only thing knockburn were all
those machines. And that was the reason Truman had the
fire bombing of Tokyo, was because that was the industrial
comm pledge. So I were going north twelve hours to
write you, and I gone on down to the ocean
to lect you. And we get to the prison compound.
(30:09):
We have to stand there to attention and wait for
further order. And we waited and watched the front door
of the guard shack, and whoever was in there was
making us wait purposely, and we waited and waited and waited,
and the door opened and I'll shuts the burden. Well,
my knees buckled. I just I just couldn't believe. I
just thought, you know, I'm a guide that never gives up.
(30:31):
But I got to the point I just thought, it's hopeless, hopeless.
I can't escape this guy. So I got back to attention,
and then I had to put up him all over again.
So then about eight days before the wars over, we
kept one of the guards came to me and and
(30:53):
said a sad thing happened in Japan city called Hiroshima.
Power broke out Nolan's allowed to go in its quarantine,
and man, we thought that was said. So the whole
nation of Japan knew that Hiroshima was a city quarantine
with collar. And then about eight days later were told
(31:16):
a pw on the roof, and we heard rumors about
the war being over it for two years, so it
didn't mean much, but we wouldn't believe until we saw
a TVF fly over the river and they saw all
the prigners in the river and they flashed on their
the red light and the radio man picked it up.
The wars over. So then we rushed up to the
(31:37):
compound and began to wave up a plane. He circled
and circle, then he dropped the red ribbon. On the
end of it was a candy bar with a bite
out of it and pack of sagas. Were two sagers gone,
and yet three hundred and fifty men got a pupper
cigarette and we all had a sugar of candy pretty
good that evening. He came back and we looked like
(31:57):
a body folly. It was a pair of navy pants
tied at the bottom on top and carding the cigarettes
and candy and Commander fitzhold of the gin of ear submarine.
The ranking officer. He opened the pants and right on
the top was a magazine and he just stood there
silently looking at that picture of the stomic bomb, because
(32:20):
we'd never heard of it, and he kept looking at it,
and the other officers walked up. We all looked over
his shoulder and looked at that picture. And then I
realized the date of the collar as Hiroshima at the
same dates will actually what happened with the bomb, and
the Japanese pulled the eyes over the general public by
chilling him up his collar. Us were the best thing
(32:41):
that could have done. So finally, the bird, two days
before we knew, actually knew the war was over. The
bird disappeared, and because we had a seventy pound walk
on the second floor right over the river and a rope,
we had a hidden away in the bulk of the building,
(33:02):
and we were going to grab him, tie the lock
on him, and throw him over into the river. That
was our intention. But he flew the coop, so we
didn't see him again. The other guards all started buying
the scraping and and we talked to our farm him
and we knew that family got home that weren't eating
too well, and typical American, we started giving the guards
(33:24):
food to take home to their children and stuff I
got candy. In fact, when the war was over, sleeping
in tenth on the way home, I still had nightmares
about the bird. I'm Italian. I have to have revenge,
and when he's torturing me and punishing me, the revenge
in my heart and my handshack hunted. I got him
by the throat, and that was in my dreams every night,
every night, every night I got home, it was the
(33:47):
same thing at home. I got married, I still had
the nightmares. In the meantime, I started drinking because of that.
But before I started drinking heavily, I started training for
the forty eight Olympics, and I did get in good shape.
And then when I had my knee give out, my
ankle and a muscle spasm or like an explosion in
(34:07):
my cap, I couldn't train anymore and I gave that up,
and that really hurt me. And Slush are drinking more
and more, and my wife decided shine for a divorce,
and somebody in our apartment house I was telling about
a fellow named Billy Graham. We never heard him. They
talked my wife into going down to hear Billy Graham.
(34:28):
He made a decision for the Lord. Came home that
night try to talk me into him, and I said,
cable way, fund, I don't want to hear any more
about religion. And because she said something that really struck
me in the heart, and that was and because of
my decision, I'm not going to get a divorce. So
that was good news. But the next day she was
all over man. I refused to go. Finally, they more
(34:50):
or less tricked me to going down to hear Billy
and there he's preaching, you know, for all of sin. Well,
I knew I was a center. Well, I didn't like
the idea of him remind him, and it just gave
give me the shoes to leave. I got mad, grabbed
my wife, put her home, and the next day should
go all over me again. And so I finally consented
on a return trip. And I said, well, when he
(35:14):
finishes his Shoman says everyhow head bowed, I'm getting out. Okay,
So back we went, and I kept pointing scripture from
the Bible, and now I knew what I should do,
but I didn't want to do it. And then as
I started to leave the camp, I started thinking back
on the raft. When our lives were spared, we did
(35:36):
pray morning, noon and night, and we paid constantly on
the raft. My prayer was always God saved my life,
and I'll seek you and serve you, and here I
am home alive. My prayers were answered, and they completely
turned my back on those promises. That hit me pretty hard.
Before I got to the aisle where I decided to
turn out, I stopped moment Harry made my decision, went
(35:59):
back to the pair room and made my confessional faith
in Christ, and there a miracle took place. My life
completely changed. I had a turn about. I knew that
I was true getting drunk, I knew it obviously for myself.
I knew I'd forgive them all my guards. I knew
I'd forgiven the bird. And I think proof for that
(36:19):
was at that night I didn't have a nightmare for
the first time. And it's been two and a half
years and I haven't sent the war, and I had
a nightmare every night and now from nineteen forty nine
so this day, I still never had a nightmare, or
even this by just ankling him a nightmare and So
when I met with the studio to make the movie
(36:41):
with the Universal, the producer was hearing all the things
that bird did. The mean I'm feeling at this meeting
like this, listening to these fellas talk. I finally he's
getting really up tight. And he jumped up and said, Louis, Louis,
how could you forgive that song? And so when I
stood up and I said, well, I can only give
you one verse in the Bible why I could forgive him. Therefore,
if any man being Christ, he is a new persia,
(37:03):
all things I'll passed away the whole all things will
become new. And hey looked at me. I didn't know
what he's going to do. And they rushed over and
grabbed me around the vast, picked me up and said
we're gonna make this a whole nature film. So I
thought that was pretty pretty need him there, joyish and
I'll mention any Christ. So that was the climash. That
was just beautiful. So I rushed my story and what
(37:26):
a voice you just heard? That is Louis Amporini from
the grave in heaven sharing his story for all to
hear about how Jesus saved his life. Made those nightmares
disappear and renewed his life and his marriage and his
special thanks to Greg Hengler as always for the editing
on that piece, and thanks to Vision Video. God saved
(37:48):
my life and I will seek and serve you, he
prayed on that boat. I turned my back on God,
but then I came to Christ. My life completely changed.
I forgave the bird my night. Mayors ended. Louis Emporini
born on this day in nineteen seventeen. Here on our
American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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