5 reasons why Louis Zamperini is a Legend

5 Reasons Why Louis Zamperini is a Legend

Louis Zamperini is more than your Average Joe kind of dude.  He is an idol to some, a symbol to others, and just another guy to people who haven’t heard of his story and struggles.  Louis is a legend to most in today’s world though. 

1-      He survived out on a life raft for 47 days

After Louis plane crashed when his crew and he were flying it over the Pacific Ocean, only three people survived the crash.  Himself, a pilot named Phil, and another member named Mac were the only living people from the crash and were in dire circumstances.  They had two life rafts between the three and all the food was gone within one day or so.  This forced the men to live off of fish and birds they killed so that they could survive.  They were also tormented with storms, hallucinations, sharks, the fear of death, insanity, and one time Japanese planes came and shot at their rafts, luckily killing none. (i.e. sharks circled them their whole journey across the Pacific.  Sometimes, they imagined no winds and not moving at all, when in reality they were moving fast.)    

2-      Louis made the best out of what he had during his life at all times

While growing up as a kid, he was bullied and wasn’t exactly the perfect child in his hometown of Torrance, California.  He had run his whole life from people for fun and then he started to run because he realized he was better than almost everyone.  When he was on the life raft, he killed anything he could so the men on the raft could have food to eat and not starve to death.  Finally, when he was a Prisoner of War in Japan, all the prisoners there including himself, did whatever they could to survive including: stealing, bribing officers,  and rebelling against the Japanese. (i.e. as a kid he ran so he could finally feel like he was accomplishing something good, also on the bases they would rebel, a sort of victory for themselves.)

3-      He was an Olympic Runner

When Louis was in college at USC setting records on the track, he dreamed of running in the Olympics; it soon had become a reality for him.  He ran in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and placed 8^th, drawing the attention of Hitler himself.  He ran the 5000 meter and his final lap of 56 seconds is the lap which intrigued Hitler about Louis’ speed.  When Louis entered the Olympics no Americans, including himself, were favored to win in the 5000 meter race; none of them did of course but Louis Zamperini a.k.a. the “Torrance Tornado” still had a large impact on the race.

4-      Prisoner of War

When Louis got captured by the Japanese with his pilot Phil, they were taken to a very clean and nice Japanese base off the coast of the Pacific.  They were treated extremely well and interrogated every so often about the United States, their plans for attacking, location of bases, personnel, basically anything about the plans during the war.  Louis and Phil got transferred to a different Prisoner Of War camp that was extraordinarily harsh, dangerous, dirty, unhealthy and unsafe for any living being that was a prisoner of that camp.  Both men got moved camps multiple times each camp seemingly worse than the last camp and somehow by a miracle survived through all of the camps struggles and hardships.

5-      “The Bird”

Perhaps Louis’ greatest accomplishment however was living under “The Bird”.  The bird was one of the worst and most abusive officers any prisoner had ever faced.  He hated Louis especially for some reason and treated him horrendously, to the point of death every single time he attacked Louis.  Louis got singled out and attacked every single day by the officer, losing moral but still pushing thru to survive the camps where the bird was. (i.e. The Bird made every single person in the camp punch Louis hard in the face one time.  Another, he beat Louis with a bamboo stick.)