My Thoughts

I liked this book a lot. I think the author told the story of his life very well, talking a lot about his running career. The author drew me into the book with the crash of the airplane.  She knew the whole story and explained what they did to pass the time in such a way that you felt you were on the raft with them.  Her writing style kept me interested and the way she ended each chapter made you want to start reading the next one.

Louie's story was very inspirational because he had to fight to survive through so many different situations.  Life was never easy for Louie from the start.  He had gifts that he had been given that he didn't always recognize.  In the end, when he finds God and forgiveness in his life, you know that God was watching out for him even in his darkest moments.

Epilogue

Louie ended up opening a nonprofit boys came called Victory Boys Camp in 1954.  His vision was to help boys who were troubled like he was at their age and give them a sense of purpose.  Louie remained active and a positive person throughout the rest of his life, learning how to skateboard in his 80's.  Phil who he had lived through such horrors with went on to become a teacher and have two children.  The Bird, who Louie had thought had committed suicide, resurfaced from hiding in Japan when the arrest warrants for war time prison guards were lifted.  The Bird went on to marry, and become a successful businessman in Tokoyo.  When Louie heard that Watanabe was still alive he wanted to see him.  Louie had been asked to carry the Olympic Torch in Japan in 1998 and he wanted to meet with Watanabe to offer forgiveness.  He wrote him a letter in advance.  The meeting never took place, but it is possible the letter reached Watanabe.  Watanabe died in 2003.

Chapter 39: Daybreak

Louie eventually traveled back to Japan to the Sugamo Prison where his old guards were to make peace with himself and them. He couldn't find the Bird, though. He asked some of the officials at the prison where he was, and they said that the government had been looking for him all over Japan, but he apparently he had killed himself. Louie felt some compassion for the guard, as well as The Bird because in the end, The Bird was just another man. "In bewilderment, the men who abused him watched him come to them, his hands extended, a radiant smile on his face."  This trip was filled with forgiveness and a sense that the war was really over for Louie.

Chapter 38: A Beckoning Whistle

Louie's wife Cynthia changed her mind about divorcing Louie after listening to a preacher named Billy Graham. She had a religious awakening and encouraged Louie to come hear Graham speak.  Louie listened to Graham speak one day and what Graham was saying about God started to reach him.  On the second day he went to hear Graham speak, he also had a religious awakening that changed his life.  He no longer had nightmares about The Bird and he threw away all of his alcohol.

Chapter 37:Twisted Ropes

Louie became obsessed with drinking to help him forget the horrors of the war. He also continued to invest money into failed ventures.  His wife and he fought constantly, and once Louie awoke in the middle of the night having a nightmare about The Bird and found himself choking his wife. Cynthia and Louie had a child named Cynthia two weeks after Christmas in 1948. Shortly afterwards, with Louie's drinking continuing, Cynthia filed for divorce.

Chapter 36: The Body on the Mountain

Many of the terrible Japanese guards were taken to prison, but the Japanese government was never able to catch the Bird. He alluded his captors for many years. There were many different reports that The Bird had committed suicide.

Chapter 35: Coming Undone

The more time Louie spent in America, the angrier he got. His memories of the torture and the plane crash haunted him daily. Louie started giving a lot of speeches around the country about his ordeal. He started to run again, but his bad leg gave him trouble. One day, he was getting back to good speed, but he reinjured his leg. He had to stop his training. Louie talked to one of his old friends in the army who said they knew the whereabouts of the Bird. Louie wanted to kill Watanabe and could think of nothing else.

Chapter 34: The Shimmering Girl

Louie finally reached home in October. They had a huge party waiting for him. Louie, even after coming home, still had nightmares about the Bird. Back home, Louie met Cynthia Applewhite. They went out on some dates, and after two weeks, Louie asked her to marry him. They were married on May 25.

Chapter 33: Mother's Day

A train took the POWs to an American base. People thought that Louie had died, only believing he was alive when they actually saw him. POWs continued to eat as much as they could. The doctor told Louie that he would never be able to run again. Louie ended up on Okinawa, waiting to be transported home. Louie was finally transferred to Hawaii and then to San Francisco, where he was cured of his dysentery.

Chapter 32: Cascades of Pink Peaches

Soon, word got to Phil's camp about the ending of the war, and they threw a party. Care packages were sent by American planes flying above POW camps carrying food and cigarettes. Louie was overjoyed about all of the events. The Japanese still executed the kill-all order on some of it's islands that it controlled. The POWs were not freed from the camps until mid-September. The POWs marched out of camp, with some of the nicer guards saluting them.

Chapter 31: The Naked Stampede

The guards and civilians around the camp had gone into a daze. The Bird apparently left camp to go to the designated spot on the mountains for the new camp where they would kill all of the POWs. The date they had set for the killings was the following week. Louie was suffering from bad bowel problems. One of the POWs found out that the war had ended. Some guards at Phil's camp made them go on strange marches through the forest in the freezing cold. An American plane flew over POWs one day when they were allowed to bathe in a river, and it said that the war was over. Louie was sick and tired, but at the same time, he was overjoyed.

Chapter 30: The Boiling City

The Bird still beat Louie ferociously on a daily basis. One night in July, the Bird beat Zamp unconscious. Louie couldn't take it anymore. He and some other officers hatched a plan to kill the Bird. On August 6th, the American army dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima.

Chapter 29: Two Hundred and Twenty Punches

At the beginning of May, 400 more POWs entered their camp, which meant less food for everyone. By June, Louie's leg felt better, so the Bird sent him back out to shovel coal. Someone had stolen fish from one of the boats. This resulted in a line where anyone involved in the theft would go down a row of all of the POWs at the camp, and get punched by all of them. Each man in the camp ended up being hit in the face 220 times. The Japanese were considering moving all of the POWs to the mountains where they were going to kill them. Louie worried that all of this would happened before they were rescued.

Chapter 28: Enslaved

For the next two months, Louie was in the worst camp in all of Japan. The prisoners had very little food. Everyday, the POWs were put on ships to shovel coal into the engines of the boats. They breathed in a lot of coal dust. There were no showers, only baths in which the Japanese reused the same water used the day before. Towards the end of a torturous two months, Louie collapsed and felt a stinging sensation in his foot and knee. He was moved to work at the pigsty because he could not work very well.

Chapter 27: Falling Down

Life at the camp got better after Watanabe's departure. B-29s continuously bombed different cities around Japan. On February 17, 1500 American planes flew over the POW camps toward Japanese cities. Seven days later, the Americans bombed Tokyo for the first time. On March 1, Louie and some of his friends were transferred to a camp called 4B. Louie found out that this was the camp the Bird was at, and collapsed in dispair.

Chapter 26:Madness

When asked to do another broadcast, Louie refused, realizing that the Japanese were just using him as a propaganda tool. He was sent back to Omori, where the Bird beat him again and again. One day a swarm of B-29s appeared, and bombed an aircraft factory. Louie was starting to wear down. The Bird was on him every day and night, haunting his dreams. At the end of the chapter, the Bird left the camp for good.

Chapter 25: B-29

Louie now took some un-blindfolded trips into Japan. A new plane called the B-29 passed over Louie and the other POWs. While everyone was happy about the plane, Louie could not enjoy it. "The Bird" still beat him daily. Louie began to wear down from these daily beatings. Louie was forced to be on Radio Tokyo to read a message to Americans and others. Word reached a friend of Louie's from USC, and she typed a letter to his family. Word then reached the Zamperinis, who were overjoyed to know he was alive.

Chapter 24: Hunted

"The Bird" was all that Louie ever thought about. He was the terror of the camp; and while others tried to give him strategies to escape Watanabe. Prisoners at this camp were silently rebellious. They took fish and other food into the camp. Louie got caught up in this.

"The Bird" still made relentless attacks on Louie, and other guards sometimes tried to help Louie.

Chapter 23: Monster

When Louie and Tinker arrived at Omori, they were greeted by "the Bird." He was a mean corporal who had a reputation for beating POWs and then apologizing later, only to, later that day, do it all over again. The food was a little bit better then the food at Ofuna, but not by much. Diseases still spread quickly. "The Bird" or Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who was known for being brutal, took an immediate dislike to Louie.

Chapter 22: Plots Afoot

Louie befriended a man named Frank Tinker. The two men hatched a plan, that maybe they could fly away on a plane, because Tinker was a pilot. Louie gained a job as a barber for the soldiers. This job earned him more food, which he was desperate for. He also obtained a newspaper, which contained some information about the war. Conditions got worse in the prisons, with leeches crawling all over POWs. Another friend named Harris obtained a book which talked about planes and ships and distances between cities. They decided to escape by boat to China. Then their plans were delayed when a prisoner escaped and guards were told to execute anyone who tried to do something like that. Zamperini and Tinker were then sent to Omori, another POW camp.