Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
INSPIRING. This book is the result of wonderful journalism by Laura Hillenbrand. It is a biography of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic athelete, B-24 bombardier, plane crash survivor (survived on inflatable raft for 47 days) and POW survivor on Japanese camps. Born in 1917, this guy is about 94 years today.
The book walks from the childhood days of Zamperini to what he did in 2010. It includes scans and pictures of important milestones in history. The author has done a lot of research studying the psychology of people stranded on raft, under starvation, under physical abuse on POW camps. Great detail is also put in explaining what the B-24 bombers were like, what the living conditions of the Japanese POW camps were like, the descriptions make you live those times vicariously. The author has given justified importance to the role of family and friends that helped him survive rough times.
At the end of the book, when you read the acknowledgement section, you will realize the true genius of the author’s journalism. She went to the lengths of understanding the aeronautics of the plane herself, studied how the Nordic bombsight worked, interviewed almost everyone alive who knew Zamperini, in person, over telephone, studied the scrapbooks on Louis’ life weighing about a hundred pounds, interviewed Louis about 75 times, even interviewed Japanese contacts to verify the truthfulness of American side of the WWII story.
I learned a lot about the WWII Pacific theater from this book… a masterpiece developed as a result of 7 years of Laura’s research.
This Fox News video gives a nice summary of the book.
