On this episode of Our American Stories, our next story was made into a 2014 motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie and 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. Louis Zamperini was born January 26, 1917.
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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 twenty ten 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 Zamporini's story
were left out of the film, you will be hearing
them told now by the man himself. And we're telling
(00:55):
this story because on this day in nineteen seventeen, Louise
Zamperine he was born. We'd like to thank the folks
at Vision Video but giving us access to the footage
you're about to hear.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
My name is Louis Zamparini. I was born January twenty sixth,
nineteen seventeen, in Oley and New York and moved to
California from my health. I had pneumonia and so ever
since I was two years old, I lived in Tornch, California,
is a south of LA about twenty miles and I'm
(01:31):
afraid I was in constantly conflict with the Tornch police.
I was a rascal, and I think it all started
with the I couldn't speak English, and the other kids
were teasing me. 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, a punching bag,
and I started getting in shape. And so then after
(01:52):
a few months, I start fighting back. When I started
fighting back, they stopped teasing me. But in the meantime
I continued with my errant way, and I had been dissipated.
I started smoking when I was five, and during that
time it was prohibition, but everybody made beer, wine and
other things, and we knew who made it, and when
(02:14):
they were at the movies on Saturday night, we would
hijack the stuff. And even if they knew we took it,
they couldn't turn a sent to the police, so they'd.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Go to jail.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
And so that was my life as a teenager until
my brother got me on the track what they call
an inner class track meet and.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
The pains of exhaustion. That's the worst. And that was it.
No more running.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
So a week later, we're having our first bull meet
with Narbonn Narbonne High School and everybody assisted. I represent
the school in this race, the same six hundred and
sixty yard run, and they finally talked me into it.
The first two runners from Narbonne had finished and the
third Manazon headed me about fifty years ago. I wasn't
(02:57):
about to pass him, you know, until the student a
thousand students from my high school started screaming, come on, Louie.
Well those were beautiful words to me because I had
no idea that anyone at all knew my name, and
here a thousand students of Hallering, come on, Louie. And
that tasted pretty good, and I just got up a
little adrenaline. I suppose my family nipped this guy at
(03:20):
the tape about six inces and came in third. So
after that, I thought about that recognition. That was 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 chaplain is a recognition. And
(03:42):
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.
Considering my life, you think that was an impossibility. My
family thought it was an impossibility, my brother thought. But
I made up my mind and I became a trainer.
No more dessert. I ran everywhere, no hitch hiking, radon
(04:06):
on back, four miles or most of them back. I
run like twelve miles on a Saturday. I hit the mountain,
run around the lakes, jump on, and I got so
I liked it. I was not getting tired anymore and fatigued,
and I enjoyed mainly not running around the track, but
running in the wilderness and jumping over streams. I can
remember on a number of occasions chasing deer down the
(04:27):
hill just for the part of it. And so all
that running and in no days. There were no stopwatches around,
so I had no idea how fast I was running,
didn't even care. I just started enjoying running. And finally,
at the end of the summer, the first running race
was a far west Au cross country at use c
(04:48):
La two miles, about one hundred and one runners. When
the race was over, I won by a quarter a
mile or over a quarter and I couldn't believe it.
I said, no, I'm sure I cut a corner. I
wouldn't take credit for winning. And the official said, no,
all the talents are in. You passed every checkpoint and
they said, by the way, you wrote all three records
(05:09):
Class A, class B, and class C, and you ran
the two miles in nine to fifty seven, which was
comparable to college running.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
And I was sophomore in high school. So that did it.
Speaker 3 (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 have run against this guy, and we had
no hopes of the Olympics. Just run against him to
(05:40):
see how close you can get to a fellow who's
going to make the Olympic team. And that would have
been a victory in itself.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
And I got.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I caught him at the table about two inches, so
I knew that I could beat 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 the next day when I got a
call from the newspaper that the Olympic Committee had called
Tlaunch to tell them that I qualified for the Olympic
(06:13):
cryouts at Ramlos Island, New York. And again it wasn't
important to win. I made the team and the trill
and I'm on this ship now with all these great
athletes and they were all 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
(06:36):
it was gorgeous, Finstein animals running loose lakes, stormtroopers walking
through and we'd give them the Hile hitter salute with
a big laugh on our face, and they knew we
were kidding.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
They'd salute back.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
If we said highlight up, they say Hile Hitler, or
vice versa.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
And so they were a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And you're listening to the voice of the one and
only Louis Zamparini raised in Torrance, California, As he said
to self proclaimed rascal in his youth. But hearing those
words come on, Louis get chanted by students. That recognition.
While that was all the fuel he needed, it lit
a fire in this young man, and he said it
(07:15):
was the first wise decision in my life to become
a runner. When we come back more of this remarkable
life story Louis Zamporini's story here on our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Here are our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith
and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
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Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
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(07:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
So I got in the semi finals, and fortunately I
made the finals. And the last lap comes and I'm
fifty yards behind the leaders. Something my brother had taught
me when I was I used to complain about the
third lap of the mile being tired, and he said, well,
some of the other runners, they're all human beings, they're
all tired. But think of it this way. You got
(08:49):
a lap to go about one minute. He isn't one
minute of pain worth a lifetime of glory. And I
never forgot that. And so I opened up the last
lap and I caught the leaders coming down the homestre.
So I did come in with the leaders. They're doing
so the coach said, you just rang the last quarter
in fifty six seconds, which was considered impossible for a
distance runner. And uh, that evidently cast the attention of
(09:12):
Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
He was there every day.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And I go back to my box after my shower
and officer comes over and says, Hitler wants to meet you. First,
he asked for my name. I said I didn't do anything,
you know, he was taking hands of the gold medal.
He said, well, he wants to meet you. Went over
Tom and ears reached down, shook my hand and simply
said the boy with ah. He said, oh yeah, the
boy with the fast finished, and I'm with it. So
(09:37):
met The fur didn't mean anything, But my opinion of
him was the same opinion that Martin Luckman had and
all the others. He look like a comedian and the
way he acted, stopping his feet, pounding his legs, and
face a mustache and all la.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Uh So that was my opinion of him.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Uh. Well, the Games are over and we collected urbanairs.
All the Olympians did remind them of their Olympic trip.
And now I'm back home, entering USC as a freshman,
and now nineteen forty Tokyo Olympics. We're all aiming for that,
(10:15):
and suddenly we'd 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 a kid who's 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.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Until Pearl Harbor was hit.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
And of course we forgot all about being athletes and
like all other Americans. We are one mind of one accord,
one purpose, get in 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 Arnold,
Charge of the Air Force through a friend, he was
(10:58):
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 bombing of the war for dive bombing.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
So we had a lot of.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Missions up and down the Marshall and Gilberts bombing Macon
and Charagua and Woji and all.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Those islands, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
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 comes skidding up in the jeep and says,
we just got a report of each twenty five has
(11:37):
gone down two hundred miles north of Palmyra. Now the
cloud cover broken trouser at one thousand feet that's our
search mission height and swinging here on here, and they're
looking for debris in the water, white bath, anything we
could find. And suddenly the RPMs dropped on one motor,
oil pressure to zero, and the immediately called the new engineer,
(12:02):
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.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Normally on four motors.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
He couldn't get off the ground of the bomb loaded
was the green hornet was a lemon, and with one
motor out, the 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 and tail gunner were
fortunately blowing free at the wreckage. And then the tail
(12:36):
snapped off the control wires, which are heavy wires that
are springing. So when the wires make it coiled up
and they so when they snapped, the wires coiled around
the tripod.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I'm in the middle.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
I can't get loose now with the wires there. It's
a hoper's situation. And so I just thought, well, this
is it, this is dead. I'm dead, and so I
started sinking my ears popped, and that usually happened around
twenty five thirty feet. And then as I sank deeper
something I never had happened before. I felt like someone
in the signers with a sledgehammer. And then I lost consciousness,
(13:15):
and of course I'm thinking, I'm still thinking, so the
pressure has got to be getting greater. And when then
I lost consciousness and then for some unknown ring, I'm
cautious again. I'm freed. 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 ring, which
(13:37):
was on this finger, was bearing the white stars still there.
U snagged down to the waste window, and I knew
that was the waste window by the field. I grabbed
with my other hand, watched my back out of the window,
and plated my lifejacket and talked to the surface, and
there I saw my two buddies, who were now hanging
on to a gas tank. They were both in the
(13:57):
state of shock, screaming help, and the pilot's head was
bleeding profusely with a cut ivy and there's no way
I can help.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
If I swim over they help. They were all dead.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I saw a life raft that had ejected from the
plane automatically, and so there's one hundred foot cord dragging
behind the life wrap. So I'm trying to swim to
the life raft with shoes on clothes, and it's impowerfuble.
Even in a swim suit. I couldn't have caught that
light raf. The currents were that vicious. But as I
almost gave up swimming, this cord was going by my face.
(14:29):
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. For the three I took two T shirts,
made a wet contest, put on the cuts, tied it
with the other T shirt very tightly so it wouldn't
(14:50):
bleed 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 I escape, and I just couldn't find one, so
I gave up thinking about it. Instead, I started praying
and thanking God for sparing my life. Well, my buddy
saw this day. They started to pray with me, and
(15:12):
then It wasn't long after that the tail down theer
panics and began to scream. I suddenly dawned on him.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
What happened. We're all going to die, said, I said,
mac nobody's going to die. We're gonna die.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I said, mac Nobody's going to die. And then I
told him to shut off. I said, if you don't
shut up, I'm going to make a report on you
to the military when we get back. And uh, he
still kept screaming. So I tried to use child's psychology
and that didn't work. So I thought, I give my
double shock, and this is the last resort a good
shock treatment. So I turned my back on then I
(15:45):
came around with the back of my hand and cracked
him hard across 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 dicted.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
I just laid back and enjoy it. Well.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Our menu, of course now is for the next forty
seven days is what birds, fish and water we could
cast and a curse the birds and the fish we
simply ate raw three albatross. Well, We actually caught four
albus and we caught the first one we caught, we
just ripped it open and the smell was enough. We
threw it overboard. The second onely call isaid, we got
to eat some part of it, you know, and so
(16:24):
we took the brush. We tried to take a bite
out of the breast of piece and try to chew.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
It up and swallow.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
We just barely swallowed one mouthfall and again we where
we stood overboard and used parts of it to bait,
and we did catch a small fish. We divided bad
freeways and that wasn't bad raw fish. And then uh,
a lot of time went by before we got another albatross,
none at all. Yeah, there's another albatross. Well open it up,
and may I say it was like a hot spudge
(16:49):
funny with nuts on it. We ate everything eyeballed.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And what a story you're hearing. Louis Zamparini 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, and he did
(17:16):
it because well why not? He was still well arascal.
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 is changed. He takes
on dangerous missions and soon finds himself stranded in the
(17:36):
Pacific with a few buddies 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, and we returned to our
(18:09):
American stories and to Louis Zamporini's story.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
The year is nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
While serving as Obama deer on a search and rescue
mission in the B twenty four Liberator in the Pacific,
Zamporini's plane experienced mechanical difficulties and crashed into the ocean.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Let's pick up where we last.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Left off before we went seven days without water. On
the twenty seventh day, we heard mortars and you can
imagine our excitement. We shot players through what every guy
in the ocean flickered our mirrors. The plane came down
and through Lords they came to Wargs. We had our
shirts off, you know, waving our shirts tears my eyes. Well,
(18:50):
we're going to be with the mauricea Knight on Palmyra.
And then machine gun it water splashed off, you know,
coming out and just missed us. And then I saw
the red circle. It was a Sally bomber, which was
comparable to our be twenty five.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
And so that went on.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
They stretched us for about thirty minutes. I was in
the water with two sharks while there was two stayed
in the raft. And every time I came up, I
knew they were dead, but they were live. And they
weren't touched, missed by an eighth of an inch quarter
as halfness. And this was just unbelievable. And I'm in
the water with two sharks, and of course I'm taught
how to evade sharks. The last resorts strayed on. You
(19:27):
stay there, they'll come up, surely, they'll stop size you
up and then they'll come at you. And you 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 was now wrinkled, laying flat in the water.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
There's no chance.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
We got to pretend we're dead. So we pretend we
were dead, and the plane evidently bypasses 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 up directly on course,
there's time, said the off course. I looked out of
the corner of my eye and I saw the bombay
(20:09):
door open, and ours is it. They dropped the depth charge.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
It was a canister. Now we dropped bombed on submarine.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
They dropped the canister and it lit about fifty feet away,
which would have killed us, but the canister was improperly
armed and shrank to the bottom harmlessly. And they did
turn around then and leave us at Borelwater relief. And
then we had to start pumping that raft with sharks around,
and we're right level with the water. Were pumping like mad,
(20:39):
taking turns, and barely got the raft up again, and
now the holes are about the size of a twenty
two hole. He had a seven point seven millimeter I think.
And if you saw that inner tube pull a hole
to the swimming pool, it would not sink.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
That's the way.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
That was our situation there as we saddled back in
the raft after eight days, which took us about eight
days to get the rep decently patched ubb and then
the only real.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Big storm we had during the entire time, and it
was monsters.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
The ways were like twenty five to forty feet and
that was far more fighting than the Japanese airplane and
far more fighting than the sharks. And we survived that well,
I should say the two of us survived. That the
tail gun had died on the thirty third day and
we buried him a seed.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
And so the next day, of.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Course, there are big swells and we're on top of
the swoller. I see lamb for the first time, and
we knew we were going to drift into the island,
but we also knew these were held by the Japanese,
so we had to be real careful and try to
find a jersuvie garland. And we were about to land
on one island when the Japanese patrol books came around
a point and spollowed us. And you know, you got
(21:50):
about twenty five guys with rifle aimed at you, one
guy the machine gun. You know, we were so bushed
that we couldn't really laugh, but inside we were laughing.
Then they threw us the rope and told us aboard.
We couldn't even crawl over that week, and sat us
on the deck of the ship and here's for the
pistol in the face. But they did get us a
(22:11):
drink of water and a biscuit. They were taking the
wood in there. Weighed in at thirty plod a buck,
I don't know sixty five pounds, so I lost about
almost one hundred. And there we were treated decently. They
pulled the rat out of the from the boat and
counted the hole forty eight holes.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
And I told them, I told.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Them the day, the twenty seventh day on the raft,
the date that the Japanese pilot straped us. You should
be able to find out who that pilot was or
no 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 leave this island, we
(22:54):
cannot guarantee your life. So we're heading for a quad
and we knew through the scoward, but that it was
considered an execution island.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
We were blindfolded.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
The ocean forty seven day out there, all you saw
was that endless sky, and the Pacific Ocean is what
sixty five million square miles the endless ocean. Now I'm blindfolded,
and when I menside that cell, which is two pieces
wide by six feet deep and six feet long, they
take my blind poles off. My eyes just jumped all
over the place. I couldn't believe where I was and
(23:30):
just had a terrible effect on me. I just in
the corner of that stell. I just sat there and
I looked at my scoutsful frame and just started to cry.
And it was, you know, here I am two months ago,
I was a vigorous athlete and here I am a skeleton.
And then now our knew guard came on duty and
(23:51):
after about a week and he simply looked in and
said you Christian, me Christian. So they can say, well,
in Japan at that time, you didn't admit you were
a Christian out in Japan, and uh, of course I
thought I wasn't I Christian Christian? So we started a
chat on paper, who draw a picture for the name
(24:12):
to and so forth? And uh, two days later he
got his monthly candy ash and shared it with me.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Uh. Every day, of course we in the morning we
would think about execution. We'll list be the morning, We'll
list be the morning.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
And then.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
An officer came in one name and said, you will
go to Yokahamas pidness war on the jeopardy with the
Japanese fleet up to Sacred Camp in the hild of
old Una, and uh they are. I'm shoved into a
room and told us stand away for for the orders.
And uh, so I stand there. I see the back
(24:49):
of the man's head and then he turns along men's
back in the chair and looks at him. Laughs, And
he didn't have to say remember me. I know him
well at USC for three and a half years. James
Sosaki and Riley says, I came back to Japan after
USC and became Admiral Society that civilian rank of admiral
(25:14):
ahead of all interrogation all over Japan ninety one prison camp,
and we talked about USC, the bacon and eight doctors
on the campus. He was talking about that kind of
food chili, weren't getting it, and then he said, well,
we'll see each.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Other from time to time. They called him Jimmy.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Jimmy Sosaki had a high ficency transmitter just off a
towns boulevard a short distance from the Edison substation where
he made broadcast daily to the Japanese government.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Then they said he left by boat two days before
or raked by the FBI and CIA.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
I'm finally transferred to what they call headquarters camp on
Mary between Alma, Tokyo, or a man made island, and
there I meet the nightmare in my life, the bird
I command. There he lines us up to buy him
looks at me and I couldn't look in his eye.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
That looked away, and he said, why you don't look
at my eyes? Buy?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
So I'm knockdown, I get up, knockdown again. So I'm
punched out every day for the first ten days. And
I knew who who the bosh was, that's for sure,
And so he was.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
They're so brutaled. The other guards.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
We gave him vile, filthy names. It didn't give him
a filthy name. We simply call him the Bird. But Sire,
if he did find out to stuggle but that we
named him a certain name, then we're really in for trouble.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And you've been listening to Louise Zamporini 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 five foot plus waves. Then he's
transferred to execution island. He catches a glimpse of himself
(26:57):
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 life story, the story of Louis
Zamporini born on this day in nineteen seventeen, Here on
(27:20):
our American stories, and we returned to our American stories
and to Louis Zamporini's story when we last left off
(27:43):
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. Let's continue with Louise Zamporini.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Now he was the son of a wealthy family. He
thunked out our officers schools. They had him for officers,
and I can remember when we had a B twenty
nine ready, call all Americans out, and he separated the
officers from the enlisted men. And then he had all
the lost rank and listed men just to shame us.
Buck privates faced it and each one had to punch
(28:22):
us and off of down. Then they wouldn't hit us hard.
They'd hit us easy and then mediate hit with the club. Hey,
hit us hard, knock us down and get it over with.
So we had to take a full blow on the face,
down on the ground, and so that's the way he was.
He took it out our officers. Always officers got the punishment.
But about another week went by, and I believe there
(28:45):
were six or seven us lined up put in a
train and now we're crossing 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 a
glow all night and half the next day. And I
come on the train and we go back to that
charred ways and all we could say for miles nineteen
(29:07):
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 LAIDs that the Japanese did.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
They did like the Germans.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Their factory was bombed, but it didn't throw them down
because the big factory in the industrial complex at the
Point of Tokyo, they only had part of their machinery there.
The rest of it was in the civilian homes. And
I remember going to the slaughterhouse to pick up our meat,
which was horse guts in a wheelbarrow, and they used
to see these transformers, and.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
My goll it to this little house.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
I'd looked back and I'd see a laid, great big
twenty five thousand dollars laid, my guys working making parts,
and all down the street. There was really strange to
see the only thing not burn were all those machines.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
And that was the raising Truman.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Had the fire bombing of Tokyo was because that was
the industrial compon plex. So I were going north twelve
hours to right to Nagano and down to the ocean
to the Lectu.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
And we get to the prison compound.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
We have to stand there detention 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, the house sets the bird. Well, my
knees buckled. I just I just couldn't believe. I just thought,
you know, my guide that never gives up. When I
(30:31):
got to the point, I just thought, it's hopeless, hopeless.
I can't escaped this guy. So I got back to
attention and then I had to pull up him all
over again.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
So then.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
About eight days before the war's over, we get one
of the guards came to me and said, a sad
thing happened in Japan a city call Hiroshima. Power broke out.
No one's allowed to go in this quarantine, And.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Yeah, we thought that was sad.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
So the whole nation of Japan knew that Pirosheimo was
a citic quarantine with collar. And then about eight days
later we're told a paint p w on the rope
and we heard rumors about the war being over for
two years, so it didn't mean much, but we wouldn't
believe until we saw a TVF fly over the river
(31:27):
and they saw all the pregnants in the river and
they flashed on the red light dah dah dad, and
the radio man picked it up.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
The war's over.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
So then we rushed up to the compound and began
to wave up the planey circled and circle.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Then they dropped the red ribbon.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
On the end of it was a candy bar with
a bite out of it, and the packer of siagarettes
were two cigarettes gone, and yet three hundred and fifty
men got a puff of cigarette and we all had
a shiver of candy pretty good that evening.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
He came back and we looked like a body folly.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
It was a pair of navy pants tied at the
bottom on top and carton with cigarettes and candy, and
Commander Fittshell of the grena Gear submarine, the ranking officer.
He opens the pants and right on the top was
a magazine and he just stood there silently looking at
that picture of the toomic bomb because we'd never heard
(32:21):
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 with the same dates
for actually what happened with the bomb. And the Japanese
pulled the eyes over the general public by telling him
up was collar, which was the best thing he could
have done. So finally, the bird two days before we knew,
(32:50):
actually knew the wall 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
hidden away in the bulk of the building, and we
were going to grab him, tie the rock on him
and throw him over into the river. That was our intention,
but he flew the coops so we didn't see him again.
(33:12):
Near The guards all started bounding scraping, and we talked
far for him, and we knew that family got home
they weren't eating too well, and typical American, we started
giving the guards food to take home to their children
and stuff like Thatt candy in fact, when the war
was over, sleeping in tenth on the way home, I
still had nightmares about the bird.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I'm Italian.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I have to have revenge, and when he's torturing me
and punishing me, going revenge in my heart and my
hands are hunched. I got him by the throat. And
that was in my dreams every night, every night, every
night I got home, it was the 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,
(33:58):
and I did get in good shape.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
And then when I had my knee give out, my.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Ankle and muscle spasm or like an explosion in my cap,
I couldn't train anymore. And I gave that up, and
that really hurt me. And trustarted drinking more and more,
and my wife decided time for a divorce. And somebody
in our apartment house was telling us about a fellow
named Billy Graham.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
We never heard him.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
They talk my wife into going down to here Billy
Graham another decision for the Lord came home that night,
tried to talk me into it and I said, cable wife,
I don't want to hear any more about religion, and
but 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.
(34:46):
But the next day she was all over me and
I refused to go. Finally they more or less tricked
me into going down to here Billy and there he's preaching,
you know, for all of sin. Well I knew I
was a sinner.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Well, I didn't like you. I of him reminding me, and.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
It just gave you give me the shoes to leave.
I got mad, grabbed my wife, prod 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 finishes his showman and says every hew hit, vowed,
I'm getting out. Okay, So back we went and kept
(35:22):
putting scripture from the Bible, and uh, I knew what
I should do, but I didn't want to do it.
And uh then as I started to leave the camp,
I started thinking back on the on the raft. When
our livees were spared, we did pray morning, noon and night,
and we prayed constantly on the raft uh. My prayer
was always God saved my life, and I'll seek you
(35:44):
and serve you, and here I am home alive. My
prayers were answered, and I completely turned my back on
those promises. That hit me pretty hard. Before I got
to the aisle where I decided to turn out, No,
I stopped momentary, made my decision, went back to the
prayer room, and made my confessional faith in Christ. And
(36:04):
there a miracle took place. My life completely changed. I
had to turn about. I knew that I was true
getting drunk. I knew it obviously for myself. I knew
I'd forgiven all my guards. I knew I'd forgiven the bird.
And I think proof of that was that 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
(36:26):
sent the war and I had a nightmare every night,
and now from nineteen forty nine till this day, I
still never had a.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Nightmare, or even the spy just ankling of a nightmare.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
And so when I met with the studio to make
the movie with Universal, the producer was hearing all the
things the bird did. I mean I'm fling at this
meeting like this, listening to these fellows talk. And finally
he's getting really up tight and he jumped up and said, Louis,
how could you forgive that?
Speaker 4 (36:52):
So and so?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Then I stood up and I said, well, I can
only give you one version of the Bible. Why I
could forgive him? Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new person. All things are passed away,
the whole, all things.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
You'll become new. And he looked at me. I didn't
know what is your doing.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
He rushed over and grabbed me around the ways, picked
me up and said, we're going to make this.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Interal measure film.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
So I thought that was pretty neat him. They're Jewish,
and I'll mention it in Christ. So that was the climash.
That was just beautiful.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Tell us my story and what a voice you just heard.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
That is Louis Zamparini 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 a special thanks to Greg Hengler
as always for the editing on that piece, and thanks
to Vision Video God saved my life, and I will
(37:49):
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 night, Mayores ended.
Louis Zamperini 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 twenty ten 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 Zamporini's story
were left out of the film, you will be hearing
them told now by the man himself. And we're telling
(00:55):
this story because on this day in nineteen seventeen, Louise
Zamperine he was born. We'd like to thank the folks
at Vision Video but giving us access to the footage
you're about to hear.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
My name is Louis Zamparini. I was born January twenty sixth,
nineteen seventeen, in Oley and New York and moved to
California from my health. I had pneumonia and so ever
since I was two years old, I lived in Tornch, California,
is a south of LA about twenty miles and I'm
(01:31):
afraid I was in constantly conflict with the Tornch police.
I was a rascal, and I think it all started
with the I couldn't speak English, and the other kids
were teasing me. 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, a punching bag,
and I started getting in shape. And so then after
(01:52):
a few months, I start fighting back. When I started
fighting back, they stopped teasing me. But in the meantime
I continued with my errant way, and I had been dissipated.
I started smoking when I was five, and during that
time it was prohibition, but everybody made beer, wine and
other things, and we knew who made it, and when
(02:14):
they were at the movies on Saturday night, we would
hijack the stuff. And even if they knew we took it,
they couldn't turn a sent to the police, so they'd.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Go to jail.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
And so that was my life as a teenager until
my brother got me on the track what they call
an inner class track meet and.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
The pains of exhaustion. That's the worst. And that was it.
No more running.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
So a week later, we're having our first bull meet
with Narbonn Narbonne High School and everybody assisted. I represent
the school in this race, the same six hundred and
sixty yard run, and they finally talked me into it.
The first two runners from Narbonne had finished and the
third Manazon headed me about fifty years ago. I wasn't
(02:57):
about to pass him, you know, until the student a
thousand students from my high school started screaming, come on, Louie.
Well those were beautiful words to me because I had
no idea that anyone at all knew my name, and
here a thousand students of Hallering, come on, Louie. And
that tasted pretty good, and I just got up a
little adrenaline. I suppose my family nipped this guy at
(03:20):
the tape about six inces and came in third. So
after that, I thought about that recognition. That was 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 chaplain is a recognition. And
(03:42):
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.
Considering my life, you think that was an impossibility. My
family thought it was an impossibility, my brother thought. But
I made up my mind and I became a trainer.
No more dessert. I ran everywhere, no hitch hiking, radon
(04:06):
on back, four miles or most of them back. I
run like twelve miles on a Saturday. I hit the mountain,
run around the lakes, jump on, and I got so
I liked it. I was not getting tired anymore and fatigued,
and I enjoyed mainly not running around the track, but
running in the wilderness and jumping over streams. I can
remember on a number of occasions chasing deer down the
(04:27):
hill just for the part of it. And so all
that running and in no days. There were no stopwatches around,
so I had no idea how fast I was running,
didn't even care. I just started enjoying running. And finally,
at the end of the summer, the first running race
was a far west Au cross country at use c
(04:48):
La two miles, about one hundred and one runners. When
the race was over, I won by a quarter a
mile or over a quarter and I couldn't believe it.
I said, no, I'm sure I cut a corner. I
wouldn't take credit for winning. And the official said, no,
all the talents are in. You passed every checkpoint and
they said, by the way, you wrote all three records
(05:09):
Class A, class B, and class C, and you ran
the two miles in nine to fifty seven, which was
comparable to college running.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
And I was sophomore in high school. So that did it.
Speaker 3 (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 have run against this guy, and we had
no hopes of the Olympics. Just run against him to
(05:40):
see how close you can get to a fellow who's
going to make the Olympic team. And that would have
been a victory in itself.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
And I got.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I caught him at the table about two inches, so
I knew that I could beat 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 the next day when I got a
call from the newspaper that the Olympic Committee had called
Tlaunch to tell them that I qualified for the Olympic
(06:13):
cryouts at Ramlos Island, New York. And again it wasn't
important to win. I made the team and the trill
and I'm on this ship now with all these great
athletes and they were all 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
(06:36):
it was gorgeous, Finstein animals running loose lakes, stormtroopers walking
through and we'd give them the Hile hitter salute with
a big laugh on our face, and they knew we
were kidding.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
They'd salute back.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
If we said highlight up, they say Hile Hitler, or
vice versa.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
And so they were a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And you're listening to the voice of the one and
only Louis Zamparini raised in Torrance, California, As he said
to self proclaimed rascal in his youth. But hearing those
words come on, Louis get chanted by students. That recognition.
While that was all the fuel he needed, it lit
a fire in this young man, and he said it
(07:15):
was the first wise decision in my life to become
a runner. When we come back more of this remarkable
life story Louis Zamporini's story here on our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Here are our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
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
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(07:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
So I got in the semi finals, and fortunately I
made the finals. And the last lap comes and I'm
fifty yards behind the leaders. Something my brother had taught
me when I was I used to complain about the
third lap of the mile being tired, and he said, well,
some of the other runners, they're all human beings, they're
all tired. But think of it this way. You got
(08:49):
a lap to go about one minute. He isn't one
minute of pain worth a lifetime of glory. And I
never forgot that. And so I opened up the last
lap and I caught the leaders coming down the homestre.
So I did come in with the leaders. They're doing
so the coach said, you just rang the last quarter
in fifty six seconds, which was considered impossible for a
distance runner. And uh, that evidently cast the attention of
(09:12):
Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
He was there every day.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And I go back to my box after my shower
and officer comes over and says, Hitler wants to meet you. First,
he asked for my name. I said I didn't do anything,
you know, he was taking hands of the gold medal.
He said, well, he wants to meet you. Went over
Tom and ears reached down, shook my hand and simply
said the boy with ah. He said, oh yeah, the
boy with the fast finished, and I'm with it. So
(09:37):
met The fur didn't mean anything, But my opinion of
him was the same opinion that Martin Luckman had and
all the others. He look like a comedian and the
way he acted, stopping his feet, pounding his legs, and
face a mustache and all la.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Uh So that was my opinion of him.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Uh. Well, the Games are over and we collected urbanairs.
All the Olympians did remind them of their Olympic trip.
And now I'm back home, entering USC as a freshman,
and now nineteen forty Tokyo Olympics. We're all aiming for that,
(10:15):
and suddenly we'd 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 a kid who's 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.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Until Pearl Harbor was hit.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
And of course we forgot all about being athletes and
like all other Americans. We are one mind of one accord,
one purpose, get in 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 Arnold,
Charge of the Air Force through a friend, he was
(10:58):
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 bombing of the war for dive bombing.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
So we had a lot of.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Missions up and down the Marshall and Gilberts bombing Macon
and Charagua and Woji and all.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Those islands, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
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 comes skidding up in the jeep and says,
we just got a report of each twenty five has
(11:37):
gone down two hundred miles north of Palmyra. Now the
cloud cover broken trouser at one thousand feet that's our
search mission height and swinging here on here, and they're
looking for debris in the water, white bath, anything we
could find. And suddenly the RPMs dropped on one motor,
oil pressure to zero, and the immediately called the new engineer,
(12:02):
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.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Normally on four motors.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
He couldn't get off the ground of the bomb loaded
was the green hornet was a lemon, and with one
motor out, the 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 and tail gunner were
fortunately blowing free at the wreckage. And then the tail
(12:36):
snapped off the control wires, which are heavy wires that
are springing. So when the wires make it coiled up
and they so when they snapped, the wires coiled around
the tripod.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I'm in the middle.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
I can't get loose now with the wires there. It's
a hoper's situation. And so I just thought, well, this
is it, this is dead. I'm dead, and so I
started sinking my ears popped, and that usually happened around
twenty five thirty feet. And then as I sank deeper
something I never had happened before. I felt like someone
in the signers with a sledgehammer. And then I lost consciousness,
(13:15):
and of course I'm thinking, I'm still thinking, so the
pressure has got to be getting greater. And when then
I lost consciousness and then for some unknown ring, I'm
cautious again. I'm freed. 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 ring, which
(13:37):
was on this finger, was bearing the white stars still there.
U snagged down to the waste window, and I knew
that was the waste window by the field. I grabbed
with my other hand, watched my back out of the window,
and plated my lifejacket and talked to the surface, and
there I saw my two buddies, who were now hanging
on to a gas tank. They were both in the
(13:57):
state of shock, screaming help, and the pilot's head was
bleeding profusely with a cut ivy and there's no way
I can help.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
If I swim over they help. They were all dead.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I saw a life raft that had ejected from the
plane automatically, and so there's one hundred foot cord dragging
behind the life wrap. So I'm trying to swim to
the life raft with shoes on clothes, and it's impowerfuble.
Even in a swim suit. I couldn't have caught that
light raf. The currents were that vicious. But as I
almost gave up swimming, this cord was going by my face.
(14:29):
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. For the three I took two T shirts,
made a wet contest, put on the cuts, tied it
with the other T shirt very tightly so it wouldn't
(14:50):
bleed 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 I escape, and I just couldn't find one, so
I gave up thinking about it. Instead, I started praying
and thanking God for sparing my life. Well, my buddy
saw this day. They started to pray with me, and
(15:12):
then It wasn't long after that the tail down theer
panics and began to scream. I suddenly dawned on him.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
What happened. We're all going to die, said, I said,
mac nobody's going to die. We're gonna die.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I said, mac Nobody's going to die. And then I
told him to shut off. I said, if you don't
shut up, I'm going to make a report on you
to the military when we get back. And uh, he
still kept screaming. So I tried to use child's psychology
and that didn't work. So I thought, I give my
double shock, and this is the last resort a good
shock treatment. So I turned my back on then I
(15:45):
came around with the back of my hand and cracked
him hard across 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 dicted.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
I just laid back and enjoy it. Well.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Our menu, of course now is for the next forty
seven days is what birds, fish and water we could
cast and a curse the birds and the fish we
simply ate raw three albatross. Well, We actually caught four
albus and we caught the first one we caught, we
just ripped it open and the smell was enough. We
threw it overboard. The second onely call isaid, we got
to eat some part of it, you know, and so
(16:24):
we took the brush. We tried to take a bite
out of the breast of piece and try to chew.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
It up and swallow.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
We just barely swallowed one mouthfall and again we where
we stood overboard and used parts of it to bait,
and we did catch a small fish. We divided bad
freeways and that wasn't bad raw fish. And then uh,
a lot of time went by before we got another albatross,
none at all. Yeah, there's another albatross. Well open it up,
and may I say it was like a hot spudge
(16:49):
funny with nuts on it. We ate everything eyeballed.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And what a story you're hearing. Louis Zamparini 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, and he did
(17:16):
it because well why not? He was still well arascal.
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 is changed. He takes
on dangerous missions and soon finds himself stranded in the
(17:36):
Pacific with a few buddies 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, and we returned to our
(18:09):
American stories and to Louis Zamporini's story.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
The year is nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
While serving as Obama deer on a search and rescue
mission in the B twenty four Liberator in the Pacific,
Zamporini's plane experienced mechanical difficulties and crashed into the ocean.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Let's pick up where we last.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Left off before we went seven days without water. On
the twenty seventh day, we heard mortars and you can
imagine our excitement. We shot players through what every guy
in the ocean flickered our mirrors. The plane came down
and through Lords they came to Wargs. We had our
shirts off, you know, waving our shirts tears my eyes. Well,
(18:50):
we're going to be with the mauricea Knight on Palmyra.
And then machine gun it water splashed off, you know,
coming out and just missed us. And then I saw
the red circle. It was a Sally bomber, which was
comparable to our be twenty five.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
And so that went on.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
They stretched us for about thirty minutes. I was in
the water with two sharks while there was two stayed
in the raft. And every time I came up, I
knew they were dead, but they were live. And they
weren't touched, missed by an eighth of an inch quarter
as halfness. And this was just unbelievable. And I'm in
the water with two sharks, and of course I'm taught
how to evade sharks. The last resorts strayed on. You
(19:27):
stay there, they'll come up, surely, they'll stop size you
up and then they'll come at you. And you 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 was now wrinkled, laying flat in the water.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
There's no chance.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
We got to pretend we're dead. So we pretend we
were dead, and the plane evidently bypasses 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 up directly on course,
there's time, said the off course. I looked out of
the corner of my eye and I saw the bombay
(20:09):
door open, and ours is it. They dropped the depth charge.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
It was a canister. Now we dropped bombed on submarine.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
They dropped the canister and it lit about fifty feet away,
which would have killed us, but the canister was improperly
armed and shrank to the bottom harmlessly. And they did
turn around then and leave us at Borelwater relief. And
then we had to start pumping that raft with sharks around,
and we're right level with the water. Were pumping like mad,
(20:39):
taking turns, and barely got the raft up again, and
now the holes are about the size of a twenty
two hole. He had a seven point seven millimeter I think.
And if you saw that inner tube pull a hole
to the swimming pool, it would not sink.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
That's the way.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
That was our situation there as we saddled back in
the raft after eight days, which took us about eight
days to get the rep decently patched ubb and then
the only real.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Big storm we had during the entire time, and it
was monsters.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
The ways were like twenty five to forty feet and
that was far more fighting than the Japanese airplane and
far more fighting than the sharks. And we survived that well,
I should say the two of us survived. That the
tail gun had died on the thirty third day and
we buried him a seed.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
And so the next day, of.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Course, there are big swells and we're on top of
the swoller. I see lamb for the first time, and
we knew we were going to drift into the island,
but we also knew these were held by the Japanese,
so we had to be real careful and try to
find a jersuvie garland. And we were about to land
on one island when the Japanese patrol books came around
a point and spollowed us. And you know, you got
(21:50):
about twenty five guys with rifle aimed at you, one
guy the machine gun. You know, we were so bushed
that we couldn't really laugh, but inside we were laughing.
Then they threw us the rope and told us aboard.
We couldn't even crawl over that week, and sat us
on the deck of the ship and here's for the
pistol in the face. But they did get us a
(22:11):
drink of water and a biscuit. They were taking the
wood in there. Weighed in at thirty plod a buck,
I don't know sixty five pounds, so I lost about
almost one hundred. And there we were treated decently. They
pulled the rat out of the from the boat and
counted the hole forty eight holes.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
And I told them, I told.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Them the day, the twenty seventh day on the raft,
the date that the Japanese pilot straped us. You should
be able to find out who that pilot was or
no 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 leave this island, we
(22:54):
cannot guarantee your life. So we're heading for a quad
and we knew through the scoward, but that it was
considered an execution island.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
We were blindfolded.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
The ocean forty seven day out there, all you saw
was that endless sky, and the Pacific Ocean is what
sixty five million square miles the endless ocean. Now I'm blindfolded,
and when I menside that cell, which is two pieces
wide by six feet deep and six feet long, they
take my blind poles off. My eyes just jumped all
over the place. I couldn't believe where I was and
(23:30):
just had a terrible effect on me. I just in
the corner of that stell. I just sat there and
I looked at my scoutsful frame and just started to cry.
And it was, you know, here I am two months ago,
I was a vigorous athlete and here I am a skeleton.
And then now our knew guard came on duty and
(23:51):
after about a week and he simply looked in and
said you Christian, me Christian. So they can say, well,
in Japan at that time, you didn't admit you were
a Christian out in Japan, and uh, of course I
thought I wasn't I Christian Christian? So we started a
chat on paper, who draw a picture for the name
(24:12):
to and so forth? And uh, two days later he
got his monthly candy ash and shared it with me.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Uh. Every day, of course we in the morning we
would think about execution. We'll list be the morning, We'll
list be the morning.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
And then.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
An officer came in one name and said, you will
go to Yokahamas pidness war on the jeopardy with the
Japanese fleet up to Sacred Camp in the hild of
old Una, and uh they are. I'm shoved into a
room and told us stand away for for the orders.
And uh, so I stand there. I see the back
(24:49):
of the man's head and then he turns along men's
back in the chair and looks at him. Laughs, And
he didn't have to say remember me. I know him
well at USC for three and a half years. James
Sosaki and Riley says, I came back to Japan after
USC and became Admiral Society that civilian rank of admiral
(25:14):
ahead of all interrogation all over Japan ninety one prison camp,
and we talked about USC, the bacon and eight doctors
on the campus. He was talking about that kind of
food chili, weren't getting it, and then he said, well,
we'll see each.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Other from time to time. They called him Jimmy.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Jimmy Sosaki had a high ficency transmitter just off a
towns boulevard a short distance from the Edison substation where
he made broadcast daily to the Japanese government.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Then they said he left by boat two days before
or raked by the FBI and CIA.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
I'm finally transferred to what they call headquarters camp on
Mary between Alma, Tokyo, or a man made island, and
there I meet the nightmare in my life, the bird
I command. There he lines us up to buy him
looks at me and I couldn't look in his eye.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
That looked away, and he said, why you don't look
at my eyes? Buy?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
So I'm knockdown, I get up, knockdown again. So I'm
punched out every day for the first ten days. And
I knew who who the bosh was, that's for sure,
And so he was.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
They're so brutaled. The other guards.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
We gave him vile, filthy names. It didn't give him
a filthy name. We simply call him the Bird. But Sire,
if he did find out to stuggle but that we
named him a certain name, then we're really in for trouble.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And you've been listening to Louise Zamporini 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 five foot plus waves. Then he's
transferred to execution island. He catches a glimpse of himself
(26:57):
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 life story, the story of Louis
Zamporini born on this day in nineteen seventeen, Here on
(27:20):
our American stories, and we returned to our American stories
and to Louis Zamporini's story when we last left off
(27:43):
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. Let's continue with Louise Zamporini.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Now he was the son of a wealthy family. He
thunked out our officers schools. They had him for officers,
and I can remember when we had a B twenty
nine ready, call all Americans out, and he separated the
officers from the enlisted men. And then he had all
the lost rank and listed men just to shame us.
Buck privates faced it and each one had to punch
(28:22):
us and off of down. Then they wouldn't hit us hard.
They'd hit us easy and then mediate hit with the club. Hey,
hit us hard, knock us down and get it over with.
So we had to take a full blow on the face,
down on the ground, and so that's the way he was.
He took it out our officers. Always officers got the punishment.
But about another week went by, and I believe there
(28:45):
were six or seven us lined up put in a
train and now we're crossing 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 a
glow all night and half the next day. And I
come on the train and we go back to that
charred ways and all we could say for miles nineteen
(29:07):
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 LAIDs that the Japanese did.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
They did like the Germans.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Their factory was bombed, but it didn't throw them down
because the big factory in the industrial complex at the
Point of Tokyo, they only had part of their machinery there.
The rest of it was in the civilian homes. And
I remember going to the slaughterhouse to pick up our meat,
which was horse guts in a wheelbarrow, and they used
to see these transformers, and.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
My goll it to this little house.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
I'd looked back and I'd see a laid, great big
twenty five thousand dollars laid, my guys working making parts,
and all down the street. There was really strange to
see the only thing not burn were all those machines.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
And that was the raising Truman.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Had the fire bombing of Tokyo was because that was
the industrial compon plex. So I were going north twelve
hours to right to Nagano and down to the ocean
to the Lectu.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
And we get to the prison compound.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
We have to stand there detention 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, the house sets the bird. Well, my
knees buckled. I just I just couldn't believe. I just thought,
you know, my guide that never gives up. When I
(30:31):
got to the point, I just thought, it's hopeless, hopeless.
I can't escaped this guy. So I got back to
attention and then I had to pull up him all
over again.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
So then.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
About eight days before the war's over, we get one
of the guards came to me and said, a sad
thing happened in Japan a city call Hiroshima. Power broke out.
No one's allowed to go in this quarantine, And.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Yeah, we thought that was sad.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
So the whole nation of Japan knew that Pirosheimo was
a citic quarantine with collar. And then about eight days
later we're told a paint p w on the rope
and we heard rumors about the war being over for
two years, so it didn't mean much, but we wouldn't
believe until we saw a TVF fly over the river
(31:27):
and they saw all the pregnants in the river and
they flashed on the red light dah dah dad, and
the radio man picked it up.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
The war's over.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
So then we rushed up to the compound and began
to wave up the planey circled and circle.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Then they dropped the red ribbon.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
On the end of it was a candy bar with
a bite out of it, and the packer of siagarettes
were two cigarettes gone, and yet three hundred and fifty
men got a puff of cigarette and we all had
a shiver of candy pretty good that evening.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
He came back and we looked like a body folly.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
It was a pair of navy pants tied at the
bottom on top and carton with cigarettes and candy, and
Commander Fittshell of the grena Gear submarine, the ranking officer.
He opens the pants and right on the top was
a magazine and he just stood there silently looking at
that picture of the toomic bomb because we'd never heard
(32:21):
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 with the same dates
for actually what happened with the bomb. And the Japanese
pulled the eyes over the general public by telling him
up was collar, which was the best thing he could
have done. So finally, the bird two days before we knew,
(32:50):
actually knew the wall 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
hidden away in the bulk of the building, and we
were going to grab him, tie the rock on him
and throw him over into the river. That was our intention,
but he flew the coops so we didn't see him again.
(33:12):
Near The guards all started bounding scraping, and we talked
far for him, and we knew that family got home
they weren't eating too well, and typical American, we started
giving the guards food to take home to their children
and stuff like Thatt candy in fact, when the war
was over, sleeping in tenth on the way home, I
still had nightmares about the bird.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I'm Italian.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I have to have revenge, and when he's torturing me
and punishing me, going revenge in my heart and my
hands are hunched. I got him by the throat. And
that was in my dreams every night, every night, every
night I got home, it was the 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,
(33:58):
and I did get in good shape.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
And then when I had my knee give out, my.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Ankle and muscle spasm or like an explosion in my cap,
I couldn't train anymore. And I gave that up, and
that really hurt me. And trustarted drinking more and more,
and my wife decided time for a divorce. And somebody
in our apartment house was telling us about a fellow
named Billy Graham.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
We never heard him.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
They talk my wife into going down to here Billy
Graham another decision for the Lord came home that night,
tried to talk me into it and I said, cable wife,
I don't want to hear any more about religion, and
but 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.
(34:46):
But the next day she was all over me and
I refused to go. Finally they more or less tricked
me into going down to here Billy and there he's preaching,
you know, for all of sin. Well I knew I
was a sinner.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Well, I didn't like you. I of him reminding me, and.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
It just gave you give me the shoes to leave.
I got mad, grabbed my wife, prod 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 finishes his showman and says every hew hit, vowed,
I'm getting out. Okay, So back we went and kept
(35:22):
putting scripture from the Bible, and uh, I knew what
I should do, but I didn't want to do it.
And uh then as I started to leave the camp,
I started thinking back on the on the raft. When
our livees were spared, we did pray morning, noon and night,
and we prayed constantly on the raft uh. My prayer
was always God saved my life, and I'll seek you
(35:44):
and serve you, and here I am home alive. My
prayers were answered, and I completely turned my back on
those promises. That hit me pretty hard. Before I got
to the aisle where I decided to turn out, No,
I stopped momentary, made my decision, went back to the
prayer room, and made my confessional faith in Christ. And
(36:04):
there a miracle took place. My life completely changed. I
had to turn about. I knew that I was true
getting drunk. I knew it obviously for myself. I knew
I'd forgiven all my guards. I knew I'd forgiven the bird.
And I think proof of that was that 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
(36:26):
sent the war and I had a nightmare every night,
and now from nineteen forty nine till this day, I
still never had a.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Nightmare, or even the spy just ankling of a nightmare.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
And so when I met with the studio to make
the movie with Universal, the producer was hearing all the
things the bird did. I mean I'm fling at this
meeting like this, listening to these fellows talk. And finally
he's getting really up tight and he jumped up and said, Louis,
how could you forgive that?
Speaker 4 (36:52):
So and so?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Then I stood up and I said, well, I can
only give you one version of the Bible. Why I
could forgive him? Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new person. All things are passed away,
the whole, all things.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
You'll become new. And he looked at me. I didn't
know what is your doing.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
He rushed over and grabbed me around the ways, picked
me up and said, we're going to make this.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Interal measure film.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
So I thought that was pretty neat him. They're Jewish,
and I'll mention it in Christ. So that was the climash.
That was just beautiful.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Tell us my story and what a voice you just heard.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
That is Louis Zamparini 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 a special thanks to Greg Hengler
as always for the editing on that piece, and thanks
to Vision Video God saved my life, and I will
(37:49):
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 night, Mayores ended.
Louis Zamperini born on this day in nineteen seventeen. Here
on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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