The Second draft of the five-page essay I wrote in the 7th grade about Louis Zamperini

Louis Zamperini wasn’t exactly what you would call a prodigy. In fact, he was the most rebellious child in Torrance. Zamperini was born in Olean N.Y. in January of 1917. His parents were Italian immigrants. Soon after Louis and his older brother Pete got pneumonia, the Zamperini’s moved their children to Torrance California where they grew up. Louis was a rather spontaneous and rambunctious child. He got himself into quite a bit of trouble and was known throughout the city. He wanted attention whether it was negative or positive. The Torrance police were a little more aware of him than they wanted to. He was always getting into fights, stealing, drinking, etc. He started smoking at five years old. He painted cartons white and put liquor in it so it looked like he was drinking milk. Growing up in an Italian speaking home he knew very little English which resulted in lots of teasing at school. Which led to him getting into fights. So his father set up a punching bag and soon enough everyone in the school was afraid of him. If anyone messed with Louis, they were sure to go home with a bruise, a broken bone or some type of injury. He stole everything from tobacco to cakes right out of people’s kitchen. He said he’d take something and then run like mad. His grades were terrible and were continuously sent to the principal’s office. His brother Pete, on the other hand, was known as the golden child. He was well-groomed, modest, and very polite. Everyone loved Pete and was terrified of Louis. So Pete decided to do something about it. Technically Louis was banned from participating in any school sports but Pete talked with the principal and convinced him to let Louis use his running for something other than running away from the cops. So after lots of convincing Louis was decided to run track. His first race was not so pretty he didn’t have very good lungs having been smoking ten out of fifteen years of his life and having pneumonia the other three. He took last of course and wanted to quit right there and then. But Pete convinced him that if he trained harder and worked harder than all the other kids out there… he could win. So that’s just about all that he did. If he was going anywhere he was running there. He ran with horses and tried to eventually hop onto one. He never did. But over time Louis turned into one of the fastest long-distance runners in the country and he had no idea because he had never timed himself. Then he ran a two-mile cross country race at UCLA. There was just a little over a hundred runners. Still being in high school, he beat everyone by a quarter-mile and realized what he had turned into. Soon he started winning countless races and was known as The Torrance Tornado.

The Olympic trials took place in New York. Zamperini had originally run the mile but he instead competed in the 5,000 meters. He was competing against record holder Don Lash. They both qualified to go to the 1936 Berlin Olympics - the same Olympics which Jesse Owens won four gold medals in. Zamperini remembered the trials being so hot and humid they lost several pounds. They ran so fast they ended up bleeding through their socks. The boat to the Olympics was spectacular. Louis had never seen so much food in his life- especially growing up during the great depression. He said he’d gained several pounds, he’d never eaten that much in his life. He’d been training for the 5,000 for just a couple weeks versus 1600. Training on the boat was rather tricky. He mostly had to run laps around everything. Running was one of the easier sports to train in on the boat, compared to gymnasts who kept flinging themselves off of the boat. Being in Nazi Germany right before the outbreak of war was quite an experience for Zamperini. He remembers seeing swastikas everywhere. People worshipped Hitler when he entered the stadium. Louis ran the race well finishing with a time of 14:46.8 minutes finishing the last 400 meters in 56 seconds breaking the record for the last 400 meters in the 5,000-meter race. He finished in eighth place beating Lash by five places. He was the fastest American to run the 5,000 meters. Even Hitler wanted to meet him. “Aw, the boy with the fast finish” He had said to Zamperini. While Louis was there he ended up stealing a Nazi flag. When a group of Nazi guards asked him why he took it he said in an Italian accent that he just wanted a souvenir from their beautiful country. So they let him keep it. When he returned home he attended school at UCLA and set a record for the mile with a time of four minutes and eight seconds. His record stood for fifteen years. He even won a race when one of his competitors stomped on his foot with his spike and kicked him in the shin. His goal was to go to the next Olympics in Tokyo in 1940 but was devastated when the Olympics were canceled altogether because of the war. Louis was deployed.

Louis was made a bombardier in a b-24 liberator. Compared to a B-17 it was a piece of junk. He befriended his pilot Russell Allen Phillips. They called each other Zamp and Phil. Phil was known for being mysterious and quiet. He was rather short and for some reason always wore one pant leg shorter than the other. He had a dear sweetheart back at home Cecile Perry he loves deeply. He was also very religious and managed to rub some of it off on Loui. He seemed like a scrawny unfit pilot but he proved everyone wrong and ended up being a great pilot especially in a B-24 Liberator. Zamp and phil became really close friends and did just about everything together. They saw people they would fly with one day die in an accident the next. They saw fewer and fewer people in surviving. They saw more people die in training then they did in battle in the air-force. They had several successful missions. Once Phil’s co-pilot was paralyzed with fear and Phil had to call Louis to help him. They named their plane Superman. Then one day they took out another plane to look for any men lost at sea. Then, one of the engines gave out, they lost control of the plane, and they crashed. Phil, Zamp, and one other Mac lived. Zamp’s leg was stuck so it takes him a while to get his leg out. He was underwater for minutes and passed out but managed to escape and get back to the surface scraping his back. He found Phil and Mac alive; Phil with a head injury, Mac already started to go mad with panic. Louis spotted two lifeboats drifting away. He swam to them and helped Phil and Mac into the boats. They found very little essentials to live. They found one chocolate bar, some dye, a flare gun, a pencil and paper, a patch kit, and some other things. In other kits there would be more useful things like umbrellas that are yellow on one side and blue on the other. The blue to use to hide from enemies, the yellow to be spotted by allies and rescued. Mac was freaking out instantly. Yelling and screaming that they were going to die. Louis had originally suggested that they eat one square of chocolate at night and one in the morning, Mac ate it all overnight. It was no use at all and Louis was very ashamed in him. They were on the two rafts for about forty-five days. Once a plane flew by. They did all they could to get their attention and they did. But it was not the right plane they wanted attention from. This was a Japanese plane that wouldn’t mind them dead. The Japanese plane saw them and started shooting at them. So they dived into the water knowing that the bullets couldn’t hit them when they were so far under the water. But they also had an enemy in the water. The sharks were as hungry as they were and were about ready to take action. So they were being shot at in the rafts, and almost being eaten by sharks in the water. Either way, they were taking a risk. Zamp got in the water twice but mac and Phil didn’t have the strength to get back in the water. Luckily they all lived. But the rafts were injured there were bullet holes in the rafts that they had to patch. So one person fought off the sharks while the other two patched the rafts. It wasn’t an easy process but they managed. Mac passed away and they decided at the beginning that they would never eat each other whether they were alive or not. So they wrapped him up in one of the rafts and let him sink into the ocean honoring him. Finally, after 47 days of being in a raft, blistering heat by day and freezing cold by night they were encountered by a Japanese war boat and were taken, hostage.

Zamp and Phil were on the Japanese boat for a couple of days before they were sent to Kwajalein: aka Execution Island - description clearly stated in the name. There most people were, tortured, beheaded, and used as lab rats. Phil and Zamperini were some of the very few lucky ones. They found a picture of Louis running in his wallet and realized he was a famous Olympic runner. So they spared him and Phil and were sent to a prisoner of war camp known as Ofuna. Everyone who knew or cared about Louis and Phil had no idea they had survived the crash and were still alive. Ofuna was a secret camp. No one there was registered as a prisoner of war. It was much like a concentration camp that Jews were sent to at that same time. The prisoners of war were beaten, tortured, and put to work. They slept in tiny uncomfortable barracks. It was dehumanizing. Escape was so different from reality it was rarely considered. One of Louis’ interrogators was in fact one of his friends from college who was actually a spy for the Japanese government known as Jimmie. They were hardly fed. About one little rice ball a day. Since the camp was secret they rarely followed the law on how badly they could treat the prisoners. Loui couldn’t be broken. All the prisoners were made slave laborers. Louis was the barber for quite some time and nearly shaved the eyebrows off of one of the guards. Many of the overly harsh guards were charged with death sentences after the war. Loui found that all of the POWs took either a right turn or a left turn. Left turn being execution, right turn being deported to another camp being separated from Phil. Louis, being lucky in one way took a right turn and was sent to Omori where he met Mutushiro Watanabe. Probably the most vicious merciless guard out of all of the camps in Japan during WWII. He was known as the bird. Mutushiro Watanabe was rather mental and lonely according to historians. He would force prisoners to be his friend one evening, and then the next afternoon he would beat them unconscious. He found out about Loui and his Olympic accomplishments and targeted him. While there, there happened to be two prisoners who stole food and were caught. Obviously being punished, the bird had each prisoner punch the thieves in the face, along with Loui because… the bird could. Because Zamp was a famous Olympic runner, the Japanese wanted to use him for propaganda. So he was sent to a radio station where he got to be on a radio broadcast and let his loved ones know he was still alive. They offered for him to stay on the broadcast team so he would continue to make broadcasts, but the things that were written for him to say weren’t necessarily the kindest things about his dear country that he was loyal to, so he refused and was sent to another POW camp and continued to be a slave laborer. It was his third camp and he thought the bird wouldn’t be at this one. He thought wrong. Again he was encountered by the vicious Watanabe. He spent a total of two years in camps, beaten every day. Once he was a strong record-breaking runner, now a body holding on to life by a thread. One day Watanabe made him hold a heavy beam over his head, he ordered the guards to shoot him if he dropped it. One prisoner recalled him holding it for approximately forty-five minutes before the bird simply lost patience and attacked him. The war ended May eighth and Loui after over two long years of suffering, was sent home where he was happily reunited with his family.

Soon after returning home he met Sylvia Applewhite - his dear wife. He was several years older than her but that didn’t bother her. Recovering from the POW camps was a long hard process. Each night Louis would have the same nightmare of the bird beating him, pounding a belt buckle into his skull. One night he nearly strangled Sylvia because she was mistaken as the bird in his dream. This sort of thing happened continuously and Sylvia was obviously affected by it. Sylvia wanted a divorce, but she then convinced Louis to start coming to Billy Graham's sermons where he learned about forgiveness and peace. It was hard but over time Loui forgave his interrogators and even went back to one of the camps to meet with them. The bird went into hiding for years after the war. He knew he has wanted and the charges he would be given. He got himself a fake Identity and never met Zamperini again. Louis became a Christian and never again had a nightmare. His story is well known today and he will forever be my hero.