The character arc of Louis Zamperini
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 26 January 1917 in Olean, New York, to Italian parents, raised in Torrance, California. Between then and his death sit a childhood of fighting and trouble, an older brother who put him on the track team, three undefeated high school years, a national school mile record in 1934, the Berlin Olympics at nineteen, a collegiate mile record that stood fifteen years, a bomber into the Pacific on 27 May 1943, forty seven days on a raft, two years of beatings in Japanese camps, a telegram home saying he was dead, a homecoming that nearly finished him, a decision in 1949 that changed everything, and sixty years of forgiving people. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Louis Zamperini?
They told his parents he was dead. He had seventy years left.
He was a hard child. The family spoke no English when they arrived in California and he was a target for it, so his father taught him to box, and he got so good at getting even that by his own account he was addicted to it. He smoked at five and drank at eight. His older brother Pete, already a star, got him onto the school track team to keep him out of trouble.
It worked immediately. From a first cross-country race in the summer of 1932 he was undefeated for three years of high school. On 10 May 1934 he ran a national high school record mile of 4:21.3, which won him a scholarship to USC. In 1936 he made the Olympic team in the 5,000 metres, at nineteen years and 178 days, and he remains the youngest American ever to qualify at that distance. He finished eighth in Berlin and set a lap record. In 1938 he ran a collegiate mile of 4:08.3 with his shins cut open by other runners spikes, and that record stood for fifteen years.
He was commissioned into the Army Air Forces and flew as a bombardier on B-24s in the Pacific. On 27 May 1943, searching for a lost aircraft in a plane the pilots called a lemon, mechanical failure put them into the ocean 850 miles south of Oahu. Eight of the eleven men aboard died. He and Russell Phillips drifted for forty seven days on a raft with almost no food or water, reached the Marshall Islands and were taken prisoner at once.
He spent two years in four camps, beaten and tormented because he was a famous runner, particularly by one guard who later appeared on the list of the forty most wanted war criminals in Japan. His own government had already declared him killed in action; the president sent his parents a condolence note in 1944. He was found alive at the end of the war in 1945.
Coming home nearly finished him. He had nightmares about strangling his captors, drank heavily, and in one episode strangled his pregnant wife Cynthia without meaning to. She filed for divorce. Then she went to a Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles, became a Christian, and told him she no longer wanted one. In 1949 he reluctantly went to a crusade himself, and the preaching reminded him of the prayers he had made on the raft. He committed to it, the nightmares stopped, and he spent the rest of his life on forgiveness: visiting his old guards in Sugamo Prison in Tokyo in October 1950 to tell them so, working with at-risk young people from 1952, carrying the Olympic torch in Los Angeles in 1984 and, at eighty, in Nagano in 1998, near the camp where he had been held. He tried to meet the worst of the guards there. The man refused, so he sent a letter saying he had forgiven him. He died at ninety seven.
The moments
Louis Zamperini's timeline.
The 1910s
Born in Olean
Everyday. Olean, then Torrance, and no English at all.
The 1920s
A target for bullies
Setback, and it changed his direction. His father taught him to fight, and he got a taste for it.
The 1930s
Pete puts him on the track
Milestone, and it changed everything. His brother found the one thing that worked.
A national school record
Milestone, and it changed everything. Four twenty one point three, and a scholarship.
Berlin at nineteen
Milestone, and it changed everything. The youngest American ever to qualify at the distance.
The Torrance Tornado
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Bleeding shins, and a record that stood fifteen years.
The 1940s
The bomber goes down
Setback, and it changed everything. Eleven men went out and three came up.
Forty seven days adrift
Setback, and it changed everything. Forty seven days on a raft, and then captured.
Declared dead at home
Setback, and it changed everything. His parents had already been sent the letter.
Two years in the camps
Setback, and it changed everything. Two years, four camps, and one man in particular.
He marries Cynthia
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Fifty five years, in the end.
It nearly destroys him
Setback, and it changed everything. He survived the camps and then nearly lost everything at home.
He goes to the crusade
Milestone, and it changed everything. He went because she asked, and the nightmares stopped.
The 1950s
Carry it, or go and tell them
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: go back to Tokyo, taken, or leave it behind him. He kept doing it for fifty years, and at eighty he carried a torch past the camp and wrote to the worst of them.
He goes to Sugamo Prison
Milestone, and it changed everything. He walked into the prison to tell them in person.
At-risk young people
Milestone, and it changed everything. He had been one, so he knew what it took.
The 1990s
The torch at Nagano
Milestone, and it changed everything. Eighty years old, carrying a torch past the camp.
The 2010s
Unbroken
Milestone, and it changed everything. At ninety three, the whole world learned his name.
He dies at ninety seven
Setback, and it changed everything. Seventy years after the condolence letter.
He was Grand Marshal of a parade he did not live to attend, and his family followed a riderless horse instead. What he set moving is the hardest single thing on this whole site: a man who was tortured for two years going back to the prison, in person, to tell the men who did it that he was not carrying it any more.
Your turn
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His turned on an older brother deciding that the answer to a boy who kept fighting was a running track. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Louis Zamperini: frequently asked questions
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What is the book Unbroken about Louis Zamperini?
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Where does this timeline of Louis Zamperini's life come from?
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Sources
- Louis Zamperini, English Wikipedia biography.
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand, 2010.
- His 2003 interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, as quoted there.
- His own memoirs and the documentary Captured by Grace, 2015.