Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
Speaker 1: the show where America is the star and the American people.
Speaker 1: And we love our listeners stories. Send them to our
Speaker 1: American Stories dot com. That's our American stories dot com.
Speaker 1: There's some of our favorite Our next story was made
Speaker 1: into a twenty fourteen motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie,
Speaker 1: based on the twenty ten non fiction book by Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken,
Speaker 1: a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption.
Speaker 1: While some of the most remarkable parts of Zamparini's story
Speaker 1: were left out of the film, you will be hearing
Speaker 1: them told now by the man himself. We'd like to
Speaker 1: thank the folks at Vision Video for giving us access
Speaker 1: to the footage you're about to hear. Checked out their
Speaker 1: selection of nineteen hundred video titles of uplifting, family friendly
Speaker 1: videos at Vision video dot com. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2: My name is Louis Zamparini. I was born January twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen in Oley and New York and moved to
Speaker 2: California for my health. I had pneumonia and so ever
Speaker 2: since I was two years old, I lived in tornch
Speaker 2: California is a south of LA about twenty miles and
Speaker 2: I'm afraid I was in constant conflict with the Tornch police.
Speaker 2: I was a rascal, and I think it all started
Speaker 2: with the I couldn't speak English and the other kids
Speaker 2: were teasing me. They wanted to hear me swear in Italian.
Speaker 2: You know, these were your bullies they call them today.
Speaker 2: And so my dad got me some weights, a punching bag,
Speaker 2: and I started getting in shape. And so then after
Speaker 2: a few months, I started fighting back. When I started
Speaker 2: fighting back, they stopped teasing me. But time I continued
Speaker 2: with my errant ways, and I had been dissipating. I
Speaker 2: started smoking when I was five, and during that time
Speaker 2: it was probition. But everybody made beer, wine and other things,
Speaker 2: and we knew who made it, and when they're at
Speaker 2: the movies on Saturday night, we would hijack the stuff.
Speaker 2: And even if they knew we took it, they couldn't
Speaker 2: turn a sent to the police, so they'd go to jail.
Speaker 2: So that was my life as a teenager until my
Speaker 2: brother got me on the track what they call an
Speaker 2: inner class track meet, and the pains of exhaustion, that's
Speaker 2: the worst and that was it, no more running. So
Speaker 2: a week later, we're having our first duel meet with
Speaker 2: Narbon Narbonn High School and everybody assisted. I represent the
Speaker 2: school in this race, the same six hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: yard run, and they finally talked me into it. The
Speaker 2: first two runners from Narbon had finished and their third
Speaker 2: mamazon headed me about fifty years ago. I wasn't about
Speaker 2: the ash, you know, until the students, a thousand students
Speaker 2: from my high school started screaming, come on, Louie. Well
Speaker 2: those were beautiful words to me because I had no
Speaker 2: idea that.
Speaker 3: Anyone at all knew my name.
Speaker 2: Here a thousand students of Hallering, come on, Louie, And
Speaker 2: that tasted pretty good, and I just got up.
Speaker 3: A little adrenaline.
Speaker 2: I suppose I finally nipped this guy at the tape
Speaker 2: about six INSS and came in third. So after that
Speaker 2: I thought about that recognition. That was important to me,
Speaker 2: and I think it's important to all athletes. The thing
Speaker 2: that inspires you and creates the desire to go ahead
Speaker 2: and become a chapain is a recognition. And so that
Speaker 2: night I had to make a decision, and that was
Speaker 2: no doubt. The first wise decision of my life. I
Speaker 2: decided to go all out to become a runner. Considering
Speaker 2: my life, you think that was an impossibility. My family
Speaker 2: thought it was an impossibility, my brother thought. But I
Speaker 2: made up my mind and I became a dramatic trainer.
Speaker 2: No more dessert. I ran everywhere, no hitch hiking, rdnd
Speaker 2: on back four miles or most of them back. I
Speaker 2: run like cloelve miles on a Saturday. I hit the mountains,
Speaker 2: run around the lakes, jump on, and I got so
Speaker 2: I liked it. I was not getting tired anymore and fatigued,
Speaker 2: and I enjoyed mainly not running around the track, with
Speaker 2: running in the wilderness and jumping over streams. I can
Speaker 2: remember on a number of occasions chasing deer down.
Speaker 3: The hill just for the part of it. And so
Speaker 3: all that running and in no days.
Speaker 2: There were no stopwatches around, so I had no idea
Speaker 2: how fast I was running, didn't even care. I just
Speaker 2: started enjoying running. And finally, at the end of the summer,
Speaker 2: the first running race was a far West a at
Speaker 2: U cross country at use c La, two miles, about
Speaker 2: one hundred and one runners. When the race was over,
Speaker 2: I won by a quarter a mile or over a
Speaker 2: quarter and I couldn't believe it. I said, no, I'm
Speaker 2: sure I had a corner. I wouldn't take credit for winning.
Speaker 2: And the official said, no, all the challenges are in.
Speaker 2: You passed every checkpoint. And they said, by the way,
Speaker 2: you WoT all three records, Class A, Class B, and
Speaker 2: Class C, and you ran the two miles in nine
Speaker 2: fifty seven, which was comparable to college running.
Speaker 3: And I was sophomore in high school. So that did it.
Speaker 2: I knew that hard work was the answer, and from
Speaker 2: then on I never lost a race for three and
Speaker 2: a half years. The best, the second best five thousand
Speaker 2: meter runner in America was coming to California to run,
Speaker 2: to draw a big crowd and so forth, and my
Speaker 2: brother said, I want you to train.
Speaker 3: You got two weeks.
Speaker 2: I want to should have run against this guy now
Speaker 2: we had no hopes of the Olympics. Just run against
Speaker 2: him to see how close you can get to a
Speaker 2: fellow who's going to make the Olympic team. And that
Speaker 2: would have been a victory in itself. And I got.
Speaker 2: I caught him at the table about two inches, So
Speaker 2: I knew that I could beat the second best runner
Speaker 2: in America and this gave me the part ability of
Speaker 2: making the team.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I didn't think about the team at that time until
Speaker 2: the next day when I got a call from the
Speaker 2: newspaper that the Olympic Committee had called Taunch to tell
Speaker 2: them that I qualified for the Olympic tryouts at Ramlers Island,
Speaker 2: New York. And again it wasn't important to win. I
Speaker 2: made the team and the trill and I'm on this
Speaker 2: ship now with all these great athletes and they were
Speaker 2: all my heroes. And I'm going around meeting all the
Speaker 2: athletes and go off the ship at Hamburg and off
Speaker 2: to Berlin. And then they took us into the most
Speaker 2: beautiful Olympic village ever made, and it was gorgeous, Spinstein
Speaker 2: animals running loose lakes, stormtroopers walking through and we'd give
Speaker 2: them the Hile hitter salute with a big laugh on
Speaker 2: our face, and they knew we were kidding. They'd salute back.
Speaker 2: If we said highlight up, they stay Hile Hitler, or
Speaker 2: vice versa. And so they were a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to the voice of the one and
Speaker 1: only Louis Zamparini raised in Torrance, California, as he said,
Speaker 1: a self proclaimed rascal in his youth. But hearing those
Speaker 1: words come on, Louis get chanted by students. That recognition.
Speaker 1: While that was all the fuel he needed, it lit
Speaker 1: a fire in this young man, and he said it
Speaker 1: was the first wise decision in my life of a
Speaker 1: coomer runner. When we come back more of this remarkable
Speaker 1: life story, Louis Zamporini's story here on Our American Stories,
Speaker 1: lie h Habib here, and I'd like to encourage you
Speaker 1: to subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcasts. Any
Speaker 1: story you missed or want to hear again can be
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Speaker 1: Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere
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Speaker 1: American stories coming. And we're back with our American Stories.
Speaker 1: Let's return to Louis Zamparini and where he left off
Speaker 1: with his arrival to Berlin, Germany to compete as a
Speaker 1: nineteen year old distance runner in the nineteen thirty six
Speaker 1: Summer Olympics also known as the Nazi Olympics.
Speaker 2: So I got in the semi finals, and fortunately I
Speaker 2: made the final. And the last lap comes and I'm
Speaker 2: fifty yards behind the leaders. Something my brother had taught
Speaker 2: me when I was I used to complain about the
Speaker 2: third lap of the mile being tired, and he said,
Speaker 2: all full of the other runners. They're all human beings,
Speaker 2: they're all tired. But think of it this way. You
Speaker 2: got a lap to go about one minute here isn't
Speaker 2: one None of the pain worth a lifetime of glory.
Speaker 2: And I never forgot that. And so I opened up
Speaker 2: the last lap and I caught the leaders coming down
Speaker 2: the homestree. So I did come in with the leaders
Speaker 2: then doing so, the coach said, you just ran your
Speaker 2: last quarter in fifty six seconds, which was considered impossible
Speaker 2: for a distance runner. And uh, that evidently cast the
Speaker 2: attention of Adolf Hitler. He was there every day. And
Speaker 2: I go back to my box after my shower, and
Speaker 2: off she comes over and says, Hitler wants to meet you. First,
Speaker 2: he asked her my name. I said I didn't wear anything.
Speaker 2: You know, he was taking hands of the gold medal.
Speaker 2: He said, well he wants to meet you. Went over
Speaker 2: tonge and hears reached down shook my hand and simply
Speaker 2: said the boy with ah he said, oh yeah, the
Speaker 2: boy with the fast finished and that with it, so
Speaker 2: met The fur didn't mean anything. But my opinion of
Speaker 2: him was the same opinion that Martin Luckman had and
Speaker 2: all the others. You look like a comedian and the
Speaker 2: way he acted, stopping his peak, pounding his legs, and
Speaker 2: face a mustache and all that.
Speaker 3: Uh so that was my opinion of him.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Well, the Games are over and we collected souvenirs all
Speaker 2: the Olympians did remind them of their Olympic trip. And
Speaker 2: now I'm back home entering USC as a freshman, and
Speaker 2: now nineteen forty Tokyo Olympics. We're all aiming for that,
Speaker 2: and suddenly we get the announcement headlines of papers the
Speaker 2: Olympics are canceled. Well, it was quite a blow, you know, adults.
Speaker 2: Billy couldn't understand it. For a kid who's been aiming
Speaker 2: for four years for one race and you're going to
Speaker 2: hit your peak of your life at that particular year,
Speaker 2: that was hard to take.
Speaker 3: Until Pearl Harbor was hit.
Speaker 2: And of course we forgot all about being athletes, and
Speaker 2: like all other Americans who are one mind of one
Speaker 2: accord one purpose, get in the war, quickly, get it
Speaker 2: over with as soon as possible. However, I did run
Speaker 2: in Hawaii to keep in shape. And even though General
Speaker 2: Arnold in charge of the Air Force through a friend,
Speaker 2: he was a friend of mine indirectly, but they wouldn't
Speaker 2: allow me to go back. Because our bomb group was
Speaker 2: a special bomb group and experimental. We were the first
Speaker 2: to use the heaviest bombing of the war for dive bombing.
Speaker 2: So we had a lot of missions up and down
Speaker 2: the Marshall and Gilberts bombing Macon and Tarawa and Woji
Speaker 2: and all those islands, you know. Now, we had a
Speaker 2: few local search missions looking for submarines, and then we
Speaker 2: came back and after a mission, you get a couple
Speaker 2: of days off and we're heading for the main gate
Speaker 2: on the way to Honolu ruined and the operations officers
Speaker 2: comes skidding up in the jeep and says, we just
Speaker 2: got a report of Beach twenty five is gone down
Speaker 2: two hundred miles north of Palmyra. Now the cloud cover broken,
Speaker 2: Sauser at one thousand feet that's our search mission height
Speaker 2: and swinging here on here, and they're looking for debris
Speaker 2: and the water rife, brath anything we could find. And
Speaker 2: suddenly the RPMs dropped on one motor, oil pressure to
Speaker 2: zil and the immediately called the new engineer, and he
Speaker 2: was so excited to do his job. He came up
Speaker 2: and nervously feathered the wrong motor. All this plane could
Speaker 2: not fly normally on four motors. He couldn't get off
Speaker 2: the ground of the bomb loaded was the green hornet
Speaker 2: was a lemon, and with one motor out, the plane
Speaker 2: was having trouble. And now when he feathered the wrong motor,
Speaker 2: the plane just healed over and went down left wing
Speaker 2: first forty five degrees at the water and exploded. The
Speaker 2: pilot and tail gunner were fortunately blown free at the wreckage.
Speaker 2: And then the tail snapped off the control wires, which
Speaker 2: are heavy wires that are springing. So when the wires
Speaker 2: make they coiled up and they so when they snapped, the.
Speaker 3: Wires coiled around the tripod. I'm in the middle.
Speaker 2: I can't get loose now with the wires, there's no
Speaker 2: Hoper's situation, and so I just thought, well, this is it,
Speaker 2: this is dead. I'm dead, and so I started sinking.
Speaker 2: My ears popped, and that usually happened around twenty five
Speaker 2: thirty feet and then as I stand deeper something I
Speaker 2: never had happened before. I felt like someone in the
Speaker 2: signs with a sledgehammer. And then I lost consciousness, and
Speaker 2: of course I'm thinking, I'm still thinking, so the pressure
Speaker 2: has got to be getting greater. And when then I
Speaker 2: lost consciousness, and then for some unknown ring, I'm conscious again.
Speaker 2: I'm freed. I'm loosening from that section of the ship.
Speaker 2: I'm fairly around my arms trying to find something to
Speaker 2: grab onto and fortunately my USA ring, which was on
Speaker 2: this finger, was bearing the white stars still there snagged
Speaker 2: down to the waste window, and I knew that was
Speaker 2: the waste window by the field. I grabbed with my
Speaker 2: other hand, watched my back out of the window, and
Speaker 2: played my life jacket and talked to the surface, and
Speaker 2: there I saw my two buddies who were now hanging
Speaker 2: out to a gas tank. They were both in the
Speaker 2: state of shocked, screaming help, and the pilot's head was
Speaker 2: bleeding profusely with hot iry and there's no way.
Speaker 3: I can help them.
Speaker 2: If I swim over, they help them, we're all dead.
Speaker 2: I saw a life wrap that had ejected from the
Speaker 2: plane automatically, and so there's a one hundred foot cord
Speaker 2: dragging behind the life wraps.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to swim to the.
Speaker 2: Life raft with shoes on and clothes, and it's impossible
Speaker 2: even in a swim suit. I couldn't have caught that
Speaker 2: light at the currents were that vicious. But as I
Speaker 2: almost gave up swimming, this cord was drawn by my face.
Speaker 3: I couldn't see it in my water.
Speaker 2: I grabbed the last two or three feet and I
Speaker 2: reeled in the raft and I got to the pilot.
Speaker 3: Co pilot pulled him aboard, but.
Speaker 2: A three I took two T shirts, made a wet contest,
Speaker 2: put on the cuts, tied it with the other T
Speaker 2: shirt very tightly so it wouldn't breathe anymore, and I
Speaker 2: laid him back. And then I started thinking about that escape.
Speaker 2: That really bugged me. And I kept thinking of any
Speaker 2: kind of a logical answer for landscape, and I just
Speaker 2: couldn't find one, so I gave up thinking about it. Instead,
Speaker 2: I started praying and thanking God for sparing my life. Well,
Speaker 2: my buddy saw this. They started to pray with me,
Speaker 2: and then it wasn't long after that the tail downner
Speaker 2: panics and began to scream. I suddenly dawned on him.
Speaker 3: What happened.
Speaker 2: We're all going to die, he said, I said, mac
Speaker 2: nobody's gonna die.
Speaker 3: We're gonna die. I said, mac Nobody's going to die.
Speaker 3: And then I told him to shut off. I said,
Speaker 3: if you.
Speaker 2: Don't shut up, I'm going to make a report on
Speaker 2: you to the military when we get back. And uh,
Speaker 2: he still kept screaming. So I tried to use child
Speaker 2: psychology and that didn't work. So I thought I'd give
Speaker 2: my double shock, and this is the last resort a
Speaker 2: good shock treatment. So I turned my back on then
Speaker 2: I came around with the back of my hand and
Speaker 2: cracked him hard across the face. He laid back in
Speaker 2: the rapt contempt, and he went okay for maybe five
Speaker 2: days or a week, and then I had to do it again.
Speaker 2: But it always seemed to work, and he never agacted.
Speaker 2: I just laid back and.
Speaker 3: Seemed to enjoy it.
Speaker 2: So our menu of course now is for the next
Speaker 2: forty seven days. There's what birds, fish and water we
Speaker 2: could cast, and a course the burge and the fish
Speaker 2: we simply ate raw three albatross. Well, we actually caught
Speaker 2: four albums, and we caught the first only caught. We
Speaker 2: just ripped it open and the smell was enough. We
Speaker 2: threw it overboard. The second one we caught, I said,
Speaker 2: we got to eat some part of it, you know,
Speaker 2: And so we took the brush. We tried to take
Speaker 2: a bite out of the breast of piece and try
Speaker 2: to chew.
Speaker 3: It up and swallow. We just barely swallowed one.
Speaker 2: Mouthfall again we where we stood over board and used
Speaker 2: parts of it to bait, and we did catch a
Speaker 2: small fish. We divided bad freeways and that wasn't bad
Speaker 2: raw fish. And then uh, a lot of time went
Speaker 2: by before we got another albatross, none at all. Yeahway's
Speaker 2: another albatross. Will open it up. And may I say
Speaker 2: it was like a hot spudge funny with nuts on it.
Speaker 2: We ate everything eyeballed.
Speaker 1: And what a story you're hearing? Louis Zamparini. Tell Hitler
Speaker 1: wants to meet you. He was told after that last
Speaker 1: final burst of speed. And by the way, he did
Speaker 1: not tell the story here of him seizing the Nazi
Speaker 1: flag and stealing it and taking it home. That's a
Speaker 1: heck of a story. We couldn't tell every bitten part
Speaker 1: of this story. But he did it, and he did
Speaker 1: it because well why not? He was still well a rascal.
Speaker 1: In the end, he goes to usc he wants to
Speaker 1: compete in the nineteen forty Olympics. That doesn't happen, They're canceled.
Speaker 1: Then comes Pearl Harbor. His life is changed. He takes
Speaker 1: on dangerous missions and soon finds himself stranded in the
Speaker 1: Pacific with a few buddies forty seven days, hanging on
Speaker 1: for dear life to be rescued. When we come back,
Speaker 1: more of this remarkable life story, the voice of Louis
Speaker 1: Zamperini from the grave. He's in heaven now he's smiling,
Speaker 1: loving this story here on our American stories. And we
Speaker 1: returned to our American stories and to Louise Zamperini's story.
Speaker 1: The year is nineteen forty one. While serving as Obama
Speaker 1: deer on a search and rescue mission in the B
Speaker 1: twenty four Liberator in the Pacific, Zamporini's plane experienced mechanical
Speaker 1: difficulties and crashed into the ocean. Let's pick up where
Speaker 1: we last left.
Speaker 2: Off before we went seven days without water. On the
Speaker 2: twenty seventh day, we heard mortars and you can imagine
Speaker 2: our excitement. We shot players through wavery guy in the
Speaker 2: ocean flickered our mirrors. The plane came down and through
Speaker 2: Lords they came to Wargus. We had our shirts off,
Speaker 2: you know, waving our shirts. Care's my eyes all. We're
Speaker 2: going to be with the Maurice to night on Palmyra.
Speaker 2: And then machine gun it water splash off, you know,
Speaker 2: coming out and just missed us. And then I saw
Speaker 2: the red circle. I know it was a Sally bomber,
Speaker 2: which was comparable to our be twenty five. And so
Speaker 2: that went on. They stretched us for about thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: I was in the water with two sharks while there
Speaker 2: was two stayed in the raft, and every time I
Speaker 2: came up, I knew they were dead, but they were alive,
Speaker 2: and they weren't touched, missed by an eighth of an inch.
Speaker 3: Quarter is half ince And this was just unbelievable.
Speaker 2: And I'm in the water with two sharks, and of
Speaker 2: course I'm taught how to evade sharks. The last resort
Speaker 2: is straighte on. You stay there, they'll come up. Surely,
Speaker 2: they'll stop size you up and then they'll come at you.
Speaker 2: And you got plenty of time to get your hand
Speaker 2: up there and catch them on the end of the nose,
Speaker 2: and they usually just take off.
Speaker 3: And that worked.
Speaker 2: But after about thirty minutes we decided we were in
Speaker 2: a hopeless situation. The raft was now wrinkled, laying flat
Speaker 2: in the water.
Speaker 3: There's no chance.
Speaker 2: We got to pretend we're dead. So we pretend we
Speaker 2: were dead, and the plane evidently bypasses that round but
Speaker 2: made a big circle, and we thought they were going
Speaker 2: back to but they decided on one more run at
Speaker 2: this time as they came up directly on course, there's time,
Speaker 2: said the off course. I looked out of the corner
Speaker 2: of my eye and I saw the bombay door open,
Speaker 2: and ours is it. They dropped the depth charge. It
Speaker 2: was a canister. Now we dropped bombed on submarine. They
Speaker 2: dropped the canister and it lit about fifty feet away,
Speaker 2: which would have killed us, But the canister was improperly
Speaker 2: armed and shrank to the bottom harmlessly. And they did
Speaker 2: turn around then and leave us a boil water relief.
Speaker 2: And then we had to start pumping that raft with
Speaker 2: sharks around, and we're right level with the water. We're
Speaker 2: pumping like mad, taking turns, and barely got the raft
Speaker 2: up again and now the holes are about the size
Speaker 2: of a twenty two hole. He had a seven point
Speaker 2: seven millimeter I think. And if you saw that inner
Speaker 2: two pull a hole to the swimming pool, it would
Speaker 2: not sink.
Speaker 3: And that's the way.
Speaker 2: That was our situation there as we saddled back in
Speaker 2: the raft after eight days, which it took us about
Speaker 2: eight days to get the raft decently patched ubb and
Speaker 2: then the only real big storm we had during the
Speaker 2: entire time, and it was monsterus. The ways were like
Speaker 2: twenty five to forty feet and that was far more
Speaker 2: fighting than the Japanese airplane and far more fighting than
Speaker 2: the sharks. And we survived that well, I should say
Speaker 2: the two of us survived. That the tail gun had
Speaker 2: died on the thirty third day and we buried him
Speaker 2: a seed. And so the next day, of course, there
Speaker 2: are big swells and we're on top of the swore.
Speaker 2: I see lamb for the first time, and we knew
Speaker 2: we were going to drift into the island, but we
Speaker 2: also knew these were held by the Japanese, so we
Speaker 2: had to be real careful and try to find a
Speaker 2: Jujuga island. And we were about to land on one
Speaker 2: island when the Japanese patrol boats came around a point
Speaker 2: and followed us, and you know, you got about twenty
Speaker 2: five guys with rifles aimed at you, one guy the
Speaker 2: machine gun. You know, we were so bushed that we
Speaker 2: couldn't really laugh, but inside we were laughing.
Speaker 3: Then they threw us a rope and pulled us aboard.
Speaker 2: We couldn't even crawl over that week and sat us
Speaker 2: on the deck of the ship. And here's for the
Speaker 2: pescol in the face. But they did get us a
Speaker 2: drink of water and a biscuit. They were taking the
Speaker 2: wood in there. Weighed in at thirty plo about I
Speaker 2: don't know sixty five pounds, so I lost about almost
Speaker 2: one hundred. And there we were treated decently. They pulled
Speaker 2: the raft out of the from the boat and counted
Speaker 2: the whole forty eight holes. And I told him, I
Speaker 2: told him to day, the twenty seventh day on the raft,
Speaker 2: the date that the Japanese pilot straped us, he should
Speaker 2: be able to find out who that pilot was or
Speaker 2: no Japanese pilot wouldn't do that, but he did it,
Speaker 2: so they wouldn't accept that even with the evidence. Two
Speaker 2: days later, We're told we're going aboard a steamer heading
Speaker 2: for another island, and after you leave this island, we
Speaker 2: cannot guarantee your life.
Speaker 3: So we're heading for a.
Speaker 2: Quad and we knew through the scowl, but that it
Speaker 2: was considered an execution island. We were blindfolded the ocean
Speaker 2: forty seven day out there, all you saw was that
Speaker 2: endless sky, and the Pacific Ocean is what sixty five
Speaker 2: million square miles the endless ocean. Now I'm blindfolded, and
Speaker 2: when I men tie that cell, which is two feasts
Speaker 2: wide by six feet deep and six feet long, they
Speaker 2: take my blind poles off.
Speaker 3: My eyes just.
Speaker 2: Jumped all over the place. I couldn't believe where I was.
Speaker 2: And this had a terrible effect on me. I just
Speaker 2: in the corner of that stell. I just sat there
Speaker 2: and I looked at my scoutsful fame and just started
Speaker 2: to cry. And it was you know, here I am
Speaker 2: a two months ago, I was a vigorous athlete, and
Speaker 2: here I am a skeleton. And then now our knew
Speaker 2: guard came on duty and after about a week and
Speaker 2: he simply looked in and said you Christian, me Christian.
Speaker 3: So they can say, well in Japan at that time.
Speaker 2: You didn't admit you were a Christian out in Japan,
Speaker 2: and uh, of course I thought I wasn't ill me
Speaker 2: Christian Christian. So we started a chat on paper, who
Speaker 2: draw a picture for the name to and so forth?
Speaker 2: And uh, two days later he got his monthly candy
Speaker 2: rash and shared it with me.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable. Uh.
Speaker 2: Every day, of course we in the morning we would
Speaker 2: think about execution. We'll list be the morning, they'll list
Speaker 2: be the morning.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: An officer came in one man and said, you will
Speaker 2: go to Yoklahama pidness war on the jeopardy with the
Speaker 2: Japanese fleet up to Sacred Camp in the hild of
Speaker 2: old Una, and uh, there I'm shoved into a room
Speaker 2: and told us stand away for for the orders.
Speaker 3: And uh, so I stand there.
Speaker 2: I see the back of the man's head and then
Speaker 2: he turns around men's back in the chair and looks
Speaker 2: at him, laughs, and he didn't have to say remember me.
Speaker 3: I know him well at the USC for three and
Speaker 3: a half years.
Speaker 2: James Sosaki and Riley says I came back to Japan
Speaker 2: after USC and became Admiral Society that civilian rank of
Speaker 2: Admiral ahead of all interrogation all over Japan, ninety one
Speaker 2: prison county, and we talked about USC the bacon and
Speaker 2: eight doctress on the campus. He was talking about that
Speaker 2: kind of food chili. Weren't getting it, and then he said, well,
Speaker 2: we'll see each other from time to time. They called
Speaker 2: him Jimmy. Jimmy Sosaki had a high ficency transmitter just
Speaker 2: off a towns boulevard a short distance from the Edison
Speaker 2: substation where he made broadcast.
Speaker 3: Daily to the Japanese government.
Speaker 2: Then they said he left by boat two days before
Speaker 2: or raked by the FBI and CIA. I'm finally transferred
Speaker 2: to what they call headquarterstamb On Mary between Alma, Tokyo
Speaker 2: or a man made island, and there I meet a
Speaker 2: nightmare in my life, the bird I command. There he
Speaker 2: lines us up to and by him looks at me
Speaker 2: and I couldn't look in his eye that looked away,
Speaker 2: and he said, why you don't look at my eyes? Buy?
Speaker 2: So I'm knockdown, I get up knock down again. So
Speaker 2: I'm punched out every day for the first ten days.
Speaker 2: And I knew who who the rosh was, That's for sure.
Speaker 2: And so he was so brutal.
Speaker 3: The other guards.
Speaker 2: We gave him bile, filthy names. It didn't give him
Speaker 2: a filthyme. We simply call him the bird Becaucius. If
Speaker 2: he did find out to struggle but that we named
Speaker 2: him a certain name, then we're really in for trouble.
Speaker 1: And you've been listening to Louise Zamporini tell the story
Speaker 1: of his capture by the Japanese forty seven days in
Speaker 1: the ocean. The sharks were tough, the gunfire from enemy
Speaker 1: Japanese planes was tough. What was tougher is surviving a
Speaker 1: wicked storm with thirty five foot plus waves. Then he's
Speaker 1: transferred to execution island. He catches a glimpse of himself
Speaker 1: and all he saw was a skeleton frame, and he
Speaker 1: just started crying. Every morning he thought about one thing,
Speaker 1: his execution. And then he's transferred to another camp where
Speaker 1: he meets his tormentor the bird. When we come back
Speaker 1: more of this remarkable life story, Louise Amporini's story here
Speaker 1: on our American stories, and we returned to our American
Speaker 1: stories and to Louise Zamporini's story when we last left off.
Speaker 1: In his story, he described a Japanese interment prison guard
Speaker 1: known as the Bird. The Bird was so deranged that
Speaker 1: General Douglas MacArthur named him as one of the most
Speaker 1: wonted war criminals in Japan. Let's continue with Louise Zamporini.
Speaker 3: Now he was the son of a wealthy family. He
Speaker 3: thunked out our officers schools.
Speaker 2: They had him for officers, and I can remember when
Speaker 2: we have a be twenty nine ready, call all Americans out,
Speaker 2: and he separated the officers from the enlisted men. And
Speaker 2: then he had all the lost rank and listed them
Speaker 2: just to shame us. Buck privates faced us and each
Speaker 2: one had to punch us and off of down. Then
Speaker 2: they wouldn't hit us hard. They'd hit us easy and
Speaker 2: then mediate hit with the club. Hey hit us hard,
Speaker 2: knock us down and get it over with. So we
Speaker 2: had to take a full blow on the face, down
Speaker 2: on the ground. And so that's the way he was.
Speaker 2: He took it out our officers. Always officers got the punishment.
Speaker 2: But about another week when Di and I believe there
Speaker 2: were six or seven us lined up put in a
Speaker 2: train and now we're crossing Tokyo. But see, in the
Speaker 2: meantime they had the big fire rate on Tokyo, which
Speaker 2: we saw from our vanish point. We saw the sky
Speaker 2: at blow all night and half the next day, and
Speaker 2: to come on the train and we go right to
Speaker 2: that charred ways and all we could say for miles
Speaker 2: nineteen square miles of charred you know, mambu huts or whatever,
Speaker 2: wooden shacks. But the only thing we were able to
Speaker 2: identify were the hundreds of LAIDs that the Japanese did.
Speaker 3: They did like the Germans.
Speaker 2: The factory was bombed, but it didn't slow them down
Speaker 2: because the big factory in the industrial complex at the
Speaker 2: point of Tokyo, they only had part of their machinery there.
Speaker 2: The rest of it was in the civilian homes. And
Speaker 2: I remember going to the slaughterhouse to pick up our meat.
Speaker 2: Was was horse guts in a wheelbarrow, and they used
Speaker 2: to see these transformers, and so my golly, to this
Speaker 2: little house. I'd looked back and I'd see a laid,
Speaker 2: great big twenty five thousand dollars laid, and the guys
Speaker 2: working making parts and all down the street. That it
Speaker 2: was really strange to see the only thing not burnber
Speaker 2: all those machines, and that was the raising Truman had
Speaker 2: the fire bombing of Tokyo was because that was the
Speaker 2: industrial com So I were going north twelve hours to
Speaker 2: right to Nagano and down to the ocean to the Lectu.
Speaker 2: And we get to the prison compound. We have to
Speaker 2: stand there attention and wait for further order. And we
Speaker 2: waited and watched the front door of the guard shack,
Speaker 2: and whoever was in there was making us wait purposely,
Speaker 2: and we waited and waited and waited, and the door opened,
Speaker 2: the house shuts the bird. Well, my knees buckled. I
Speaker 2: just I just couldn't believe. I just thought, you know,
Speaker 2: my guide, it never gives up. When I got to
Speaker 2: the point, I just thought, it's hopeless, hopeless. I can't
Speaker 2: escaped this guy. So I got back to attention, and
Speaker 2: then I had to pull up him.
Speaker 3: All over again. So then about eight days before the
Speaker 3: war's over, we get.
Speaker 2: One of the guards came to me and and said,
Speaker 2: a sad thing happened in Japan, a city call Hiroshima.
Speaker 3: Power broke out.
Speaker 2: No one's allowed to go in this quarantine.
Speaker 3: And yeah, we thought that was sad.
Speaker 2: So the whole nation of Japan knew that Hiroshimo was
Speaker 2: a city quarantine with collar. And then about eight days
Speaker 2: later we're told a paint p w on the rope
Speaker 2: that we'd heard rumors about the war being over for
Speaker 2: two years, so it didn't mean much, but we wouldn't
Speaker 2: believe it until we saw a TVF fly over the
Speaker 2: river and they saw all the pregnants in the river
Speaker 2: and they flashed on the red light dah da dad,
Speaker 2: and the radio man picked it up. The war's over.
Speaker 2: So then we rushed up to the compound and began
Speaker 2: to wave with the plane. He circled and circle.
Speaker 3: Then they drop the red ribbon.
Speaker 2: On the end of it was a candy bar with
Speaker 2: a bite out of it, and the pack of siagarettes
Speaker 2: were two cigarettes gone, and yet three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: men got a puff of cigarette and we all had
Speaker 2: a shiver of candy pretty good that evening. He came
Speaker 2: back and we looked like a body folly. It was
Speaker 2: a pair of names. The pants tied at the bottom
Speaker 2: on top and carton with cigarettes and candy, and Commander
Speaker 2: Fitzshaal of the Grenadear Submarine, the ranking officer. He opens
Speaker 2: the pants and right on the top was a magazine
Speaker 2: and he just stood there silently looking at that picture
Speaker 2: of the toomic bomb because we'd never heard of it,
Speaker 2: and he kept looking at it, and the other officers
Speaker 2: walked up. We all looked over his shoulder and looked
Speaker 2: at that picture. And then I realized the date of
Speaker 2: the collar as Hiroshima with the same dates for actually
Speaker 2: what happened with the bomb, and the Japanese pulled the
Speaker 2: eyes over the general public by telling him up with
Speaker 2: his collar, which was the best thing he could have done.
Speaker 2: So finally, the bird two days before we knew, actually
Speaker 2: knew the.
Speaker 3: Wall was over.
Speaker 2: The bird disappeared, and because we had a seventy pound
Speaker 2: walk on the second floor right over the river and
Speaker 2: a rope we had hidden away in the bulk of
Speaker 2: the building, and we were going to grab him, tie
Speaker 2: the rock on him and throw him over into the river.
Speaker 2: That was our intention, but he flew the coops, so
Speaker 2: we didn't see him again. Near The guards all started
Speaker 2: bounding and scraping, and we talked far for him, and
Speaker 2: we knew that family got home that weren't eating too well,
Speaker 2: and typical American we started giving the guards food to
Speaker 2: take home to their children and stuff like got candy.
Speaker 2: In fact, when the war was over, sleeping in tenth
Speaker 2: on the way home, I still had nightmares about the bird.
Speaker 3: I'm a Italian. I have to have.
Speaker 2: Revenge, and when he's torturing me and punishing me, booing
Speaker 2: revenge in my heart and my hands are cunched, I
Speaker 2: got him by the throat. And that was in my
Speaker 2: dreams every night, every night. Every night I got home,
Speaker 2: it was the same thing at home. I got married,
Speaker 2: I still had the nightmares. In the meantime, I started
Speaker 2: drinking because of that. But before I started drinking heavily,
Speaker 2: I started training for the forty eight Olympics, and I
Speaker 2: did get in good shape. And then when I had
Speaker 2: my knee give out, my ankle and a muscle spasm
Speaker 2: or like an explosion in my cap, I couldn't train
Speaker 2: anymore and I gave that up, and that really hurt me.
Speaker 2: And TRUST started drinking more and more, and my wife
Speaker 2: decided time for a divorce. And somebody in our apartment
Speaker 2: house was telling us about a fellow.
Speaker 3: Named Billy Graham. We never heard him.
Speaker 2: They talk my wife into going down and here Billy Graham,
Speaker 2: the made a decision for the Lord. Came home that
Speaker 2: night try to talk me into it, and I said,
Speaker 2: cable wife, I don't want to hear any more about
Speaker 2: religion and h But she said something that really struck
Speaker 2: me in the heart, and that was and because of
Speaker 2: my decision, I'm not going to get a divorce. So
Speaker 2: that was good news. And but the next day she
Speaker 2: was all over me and I refused to go. Finally
Speaker 2: they more or less tricked me into going down to
Speaker 2: here Billy and there he's preaching, you know, for all
Speaker 2: of sin. Well I knew I was a sinner. Well,
Speaker 2: I didn't like you idea of him reminding me, and
Speaker 2: it just gave you and give me the shoes to leave.
Speaker 2: I got mad, grabbed my wife, poled her home, and
Speaker 2: the next day should go all over me again. And
Speaker 2: so I finally consented on a return trip. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: when he finishes his shorm and says everyhow hit bowed,
Speaker 2: I'm getting out.
Speaker 3: Okay, So back we went, and.
Speaker 2: I kept quoting scripture from the Bible, and uh, I
Speaker 2: knew what I should do, but I didn't want to
Speaker 2: do it. And uh then as I started to leave
Speaker 2: the camp, I started thinking back on the on the
Speaker 2: raft when our lives were spared, we did pray morning, noon,
Speaker 2: and night, and we prayed constantly on the raft. Uh.
Speaker 2: My prayer was always God saved my life, and I'll
Speaker 2: seek you and serve you.
Speaker 3: And here I am home alive.
Speaker 2: My prayers were answered, and they completely turned my back
Speaker 2: on those promises.
Speaker 3: That hit me pretty hard.
Speaker 2: Before I got to the aisle where I decided to
Speaker 2: turn out, no, I stopped momentary, made my decision, went
Speaker 2: back to the prayer room, and made my confessional faith
Speaker 2: in Christ. And there a miracle took place. My life
Speaker 2: completely changed. I had to turn about. I knew that
Speaker 2: I was true getting drunk. I knew it obviously for myself.
Speaker 2: I knew I'd forgiven all my guards. I knew I'd
Speaker 2: forgiven the bird. And I think proof of that was
Speaker 2: that that night I didn't have a nightmare for the
Speaker 2: first time. And it's been two and a half years
Speaker 2: and I haven't and sent the war and I had
Speaker 2: a nightmare every night, And now from nineteen forty nine
Speaker 2: till this day, I still never had a nightmare, or
Speaker 2: even the spy just ankling of a nightmare.
Speaker 3: And so when I met with.
Speaker 2: The studio to make the movie with Universal, the producer
Speaker 2: was hearing all the things the bird did to me.
Speaker 2: I'm fit at this meeting like this, listening to these
Speaker 2: fellows talk. And finally he's getting really up tight and
Speaker 2: he jumped up and said, Louis, how could you forgive that?
Speaker 2: So and so? Then I stood up and I said, well,
Speaker 2: I can only give you one version of the Bible.
Speaker 2: Why I could forgive him? Therefore, if any man be
Speaker 2: in Christ, he is a new person. All things are
Speaker 2: passed away, the whole, all things, you.
Speaker 3: Will become new.
Speaker 2: And Hey looked at me. I didn't know what is
Speaker 2: your doing. Hey rushed over and grabbed me around the ways,
Speaker 2: picked me up and said, we're going to make this
Speaker 2: interer all measure film. So I thought that was pretty
Speaker 2: neat him. They're Jewish, and I'll mention it in Christ.
Speaker 2: So that was the climash. That was just beautiful.
Speaker 3: Tell us my.
Speaker 1: Story and what a voice you just heard. That is
Speaker 1: Louis Zamparini from the grave in heaven sharing his story
Speaker 1: for all to hear about how Jesus saved his life,
Speaker 1: made those nightmares disappear, and renewed his life and his marriage.
Speaker 1: And a special thanks to Greg Hangler as always for
Speaker 1: the editing on that piece, and thanks to Vision Video
Speaker 1: they have nineteen hundred video titles of uplifting, family friendly content.
Speaker 1: Go to Vision Video dot com. God saved my life
Speaker 1: and I will seek and serve you. He prayed on
Speaker 1: that boat. I turned my back on God, on my promises.
Speaker 1: But then I came to Christ. My life completely changed.
Speaker 1: I forgave the bird. My nightmares ended. A beautiful story.
Speaker 1: Louis Zamparini's here on our American Stories