A book about survival called UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House) has been No. 1 or No. 2 on the New York Times Best Seller list (hardback, nonfiction) for 55 straight weeks. It's now No. 3. It's a first hand account of the survival of a Army Air Corps officer during WWII as he drifted in a raft across almost the entire Pacific Ocean and then his survival as an unregistered POW for about three years in the two most horrific Japanese POW camps. I understand that a major motion picture of this survival story is underway.

Its a story that needed to be told, and in my view, needs to be read by every person alive. Just saying.

I haven't read this book but have heard about it, it recounts the story of Louis Zamperini, who sure stomped the terra in his time. It should be a good read.

I'm reminded of other stories of downed airmen who drifted for days or weeks - when I was 10 years old I read the autobiography of Eddie Rickenbacker, who was in a B17 that ditched in the Pacific during WWII and he and the crew floated for 24 days. The man led a fascinating life - early automobile pioneer, early race car driver, early aviator, the Ace of Aces during WWI, started Eastern Air Lines, survived at least one horrid commercial aviation crash and the ditching in WWII etc etc. If folks are interested in inspirational stories about a life of perseverance and survival, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of that book too.

What is it about the Greatest Generation that created life stories like Zamperini and Rickenbacker? They are almost all (but not entirely) gone now. I just can't imagine similar lives being lived by people whose eyes are glued to their iDevices, GPSes etc. People in the 20th century simply rose to the challenges before them.

I have E-Book version of the book, Unbroken. Although the survival story of LT. Louis Zamperini is a compelling subject in it's self, the book flows more like a story line wrapped around true facts and should not be considered a narrative nor a diary of Zamperini's ordeal.

A couple of examples:

"We meet again," Sasaki said. Louie gaped at him in astonishment. He knew nothing of Sasaki's alleged spying, and was stunned to see his friend in the service of his enemy. Sasaki looked at him warmly. He'd been prepared to see Louie, but he was disturbed by how thin he was. He made a playful crack about how ugly Louie looked bald.


Louie was furious at the sharks. He had thought that they had an understanding: The men would stay out of the sharks' turf - the water - and the sharks would stay off of theirs - the raft. That the sharks had taken shots at him when he had gone overboard, and when the raft had been mostly submerged after the strafing, had seemed fair enough. But their attempt to poach men from their reinflated raft struck Louie as dirty pool. He stewed all night, scowled hatefully at the sharks all day, and eventually made a decision. If the sharks were going to try to eat him, he was going to try to eat them.


I am not a big fan of this type of method of book writing for non-fiction documentaries and I never did finish the book.

That said, the author did meticulous research and the book is well documented with foot notes throughout.

It will be interesting to see how the movie is portrayed if and when it is released....

I see your problem Teslinhiker and agree its not the best way to present a life's story. NYT bestsellers and Hollywood movies seldom tell things the way they should be, to the average person with 90 minutes of attention span most lives aren't interesting enough, it requires some juice. There is also the issue of biography versus autobiography - I hope never to have a third person parse my own existence, although I have toiled mostly in anonymity long enough to avoid that dilemma. I much prefer when people tell their own stories in their own way - we're all Big Fish in our ponds after all.

During the war, Sasaki conducted many secondary interrogations with high value POWs at Ofuna (mostly navy pilots). During these interrogations Sasaki came off as honorable, polite & highly intelligent. Just as during the time he was spying for the Japanese before the war, during these interrogations he continued to convincingly purport that he had degrees from "Harvard, Princeton and Yale" (this is not mentioned in the book). Many of these pilots went to their deaths thinking they had been interrogated by a Japanese intellectual with compassion.

Although I have no doubt the interrogation methods employed against POW's not only in the WW2 but also all other wars before and since are partly based on psychological games of false friendship. Many of these same methods are also used in modern day hostage negogiator training, police interrogation training...and also sales person training.

Speaking of interrogations, during the middle of the Pacific campaign US navy intelligence somehow discovered that the captured US pilots were routinely being beaten ruthlessly (frequently to death) during Japanese interrogations for refusing to answer questions. A decision was then made at the highest levels of the Navy to instruct the fleet carrier pilots to, if captured, answer all questions, with one exception, and that was that no navy pilot could reveal future fleet movements. An example of what captured US navy pilots were ordered by its own navy to answer during interrogations: questions about the number and types of ships in the US fleets or task forces.

It seems that at some point after Midway the US navy decided that the risk of captured US pilots revealing future fleet movements was outweighed by the number of navy pilots who were being lost because they didn't know where the fleet would be in coming days and weeks. The navy knew of the risks to the entire fleet if a single captured US navy pilot revealed the future location of a fleet.

Post-war POW debriefings indicated that the order to the fleet pilots to be responsive during interrogations (with the exception of future fleet movements) was a very bad decision, but only because the captured US navy pilots were routinely asked about the number of ships in the fleets. The captured pilots would then give, as ordered by their commanders, the number of ships they thought were in their fleet (hundreds). The interrogators thought the number of ships stated by the pilots was impossible and generally reacted by causing the pilots to be beaten to death, or near to death, for lying or for participating in some sort of conspiracy. From a captured pilot's point of view it would have been better if they had been ordered to answer with, for instance, 68 ships, rather than giving the actual number (which was many orders of magnitude greater than thought by the Japanese).

Also from the post-war POW debriefings (and subsequently confirmed by former Japanese interrogators themselves), it was concluded that captured US navy pilots were never asked questions about future fleet movements. It turns out that the Japanese interrogators couldn't conceive of the possibility that a navy would reveal this type of information to their pilots.

In 2003 Louis Zamperini co-authored his own autobiography "Devil at My Heels" of his survival experiences including his drifting for 6 weeks in the Pacific and then in surviving the two most inhumane POW camps in all of Japan. I only mention the existence of the autobiography for those that "prefer when people tell their own stories in their own way".

During much of the time Zamperini was a POW, he was classified as an "unregistered POW". I don't think either "Unbroken" or the "Devil at My Heels" adequately described what that really meant at Ofuna and Omori POW camps. The Japanese knew that they could do anything they pleased with the unregistered POWs since it was assumed in the USA they were dead. The unregistered POWs were kept segregated from the registered POWs. Some unregistered high value POW's were kept with heavy canvas sacks over their heads for months, even during their daily beatings. Neither book addresses this. Anytime the Japanese needed to pick a group of POW's to execute (generally by slicing their heads off) or worse, the unregistered POWs were the go-to guys. Zamperini was fortunate that at some point during his captivity he was added to the list of registered POWs (for propaganda purposes).

What mostly caught my attention about Unbroken having been on the Best Seller List for (now) 60 straight weeks (mostly at #1)? It's that there's obviously an astounding number of people who have previously shown no interest in survival or in being prepared, who are now buying and devouring this book in vast quantities and in discussing and writing about this book like no other.

UPDATE: On January 3, 2012 Universal Pictures announced that it "has acquired screen rights to Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling new book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. The studio is in talks with Francis Lawrence to direct." Other excerpts: "The studio that rode Hillenbrand’s book Seabiscuit into the winner’s circle as a film now hopes she’ll work the same magic on the story of the unbreakable spirit of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track prodigy who endured unimaginable hardship as a WWII POW." "Universal bought Zamperini’s life rights way back in 1957 along with his memoir, Devil at My Heels." "Hillenbrand has done far more than bring a great title to the table." "Her book and research will become the cornerstone for the film."

I think that those POWs that survived the camps along with Zamperini and those that didn't would be gratified to know that Zamperini's story, their story, has finally been told in the proper perspective and in such a remarkably accurate way.