ROCA WRAP
The Unbroken Runner
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Louis Zamperini
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| An Olympic runner survived 47 days adrift at sea, then endured years of torture in Japanese prison camps. |
| Born in New York in 1917 to Italian immigrant parents, Zamperini moved to California as a toddler when his family settled in the coastal town of Torrance. He grew up speaking no English, making him a target for bullies. His father taught him to box, and he started winning fights – then became addicted to winning them. His older brother pushed him onto the track team at Torrance High School, where Louis initially came in last place and felt humiliated. Within three years of that defeat, he became undefeated in high school races across California. |
| In 1934, Zamperini set a national high school mile record with a time of 4 minutes, 21.3 seconds, then won the California state championships the following week. That record earned him a scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC), where he later ran a collegiate mile in 4 minutes, 8.3 seconds despite competitors spiking his shins during the race – a record that stood for fifteen years. At nineteen, he qualified for the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the 5,000 meters, finishing eighth and receiving personal congratulations from Adolf Hitler. |
| After graduating from USC in 1940, Zamperini enlisted in the Army Air Forces as a bombardier in the Pacific. In May 1943, mechanical failures caused his plane to crash into the ocean 850 miles south of Oahu, killing eight of eleven men aboard. Zamperini survived along with pilot Russell Phillips and tail gunner Francis McNamara. They drifted on two small rafts, subsisting on rainwater, raw fish, and birds. After 33 days, McNamara died. On their 47th day adrift, Zamperini and Phillips reached the Marshall Islands and were immediately captured by the Japanese Navy. |
| Zamperini spent over two years in Japanese prison camps, never being registered as a prisoner of war. At Omori camp near Tokyo, a guard known as “The Bird” – Mutsuhiro Watanabe – singled out Zamperini for particularly brutal treatment because of his Olympic fame. Watanabe forced Zamperini to hold a heavy wooden beam above his head for 37 minutes, beating him each time his arms sagged. When Zamperini finally collapsed, Watanabe continued the assault. The Bird would punch Zamperini in the face daily, sometimes making other prisoners do the same. He forced Zamperini to race against Japanese runners while weakened from malnutrition and dysentery, then beat him when he lost. |
| Zamperini was eventually transferred to Naoetsu, a camp in northern Japan, where he remained until the war ended in August 1945. Watanabe followed him there and continued the torture. When the war ended, Watanabe fled and went into hiding, later appearing on General Douglas MacArthur’s list of the forty most wanted war criminals in Japan. |
| When Zamperini finally returned home in 1945, he received a hero’s welcome but struggled with severe nightmares about strangling his captors. He became addicted to alcohol and his marriage nearly collapsed, until his wife, Cynthia, urged him to attend a preaching event. Zamperini reluctantly attended, and was reminded of the prayers he had made while drifting at sea. Zamperini committed to Christianity and forgave his captors. His nightmares ceased. |
| In October 1950, Zamperini visited Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, where many war criminals were imprisoned, and expressed forgiveness to them directly. |
| In 1998, four days before his 81st birthday, Zamperini ran a leg of the Olympic Torch relay for the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan – not far from where he had been imprisoned. He attempted to meet Watanabe to tell him in person that he had forgiven him, but Watanabe refused. Zamperini sent a letter instead and never received a response. He continued attending USC football games into his nineties and died of pneumonia in Los Angeles in 2014 at age 97. |
| For a man whose final Olympic lap impressed Hitler and whose survival at sea seemed impossible, perhaps his greatest feat was choosing forgiveness over vengeance. |
