Brief Summary Of Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand

Too Extraordinary to be Fantasy Roughly 420,000 Americans were killed throughout the course of World War II, Louis Zamperini was presumed to be one of those Americans, until they learned he was actually alive. The story Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, documents the amazing survival story of a U.S. World War II veteran who defied the odds of survival by making it through the unthinkable. From living through a ghastly plane crash and surviving on an ocean raft for 47 days, to making it through the horrifying conditions and treatment at the Japanese prisoner of war camps, Louis Zamperini certainly remains unbroken. After all Louie had gone through, luckily in the end, he got his life back together. The fact Louie survives the plane crash, does

Throughout the time Louie was at the POW camp where the Bird had control, Louie’s life was a living nightmare. The Bird would constantly hunt down Louie to brutally attack him. It came to the point where Louie had nightmares featuring the Bird. One day at a POW work camp a fish was stolen from the galley. The foreman told the Bird that a fish was stolen and the Bird pulled out Louie and two other men claiming that they were the thieves. He also pulled out two officers claiming that the officers were responsible for the thieves behaviors. Louie had nothing to do with the fish being stolen and was completely innocent, but the Bird didn't care. The punishment for these five men was, “Each enlisted man would punch each officer and thief in the face, as hard as possible” (290). There were over 100 enlisted men. If a man chose not to carry out the punch, he would have the same fate as the chosen men. The prisoners were to be clubbed if they did not strike the men with maximum force. All these orders of agony were under the Birds word. After several punches, it is explained how Louie, “blacked out. When he came to, the Bird forced the men to resume punching him, screaming, ‘Next! Next! Next!’” (290)... “The beating went on for some two hours, the Bird watching with fierce and erotic pleasure. When every enlisted man had done his punching, the Bird ordered the guards to club each one twice in the head with a kendo stick. The victims had to be carried to the barracks. Louie’s face was so swollen that for several days he could barely open his mouth. By Wade’s estimate, each man had been punched in the face some 220 times” (290). Each punch that the men received was practically from the Bird, since he ordered the brutal punches to happen. Louie and the other men received hard punches to the face for two hours straight. For the Bird, the essence of men being tortured wasn’t out of