My first 5 star read of the year and it is a nonfiction. I do rate memoirs based on writing style and interest throughout. I do not rate based on the life of the person or persons unless they are really shitty people... looking at you Charles Lindberg!
I have been had this book out from the library since November of last year and I jusy couldn't fit it in to my reading plans. I hate returning books to the library unread so this became a priority and I am so freaking glad that I did.
I remember this book first coming on my radar when I saw the trailer for the movie a couple years ago and Angelina Jolie directed it. Then I read The Boys in The Boat and really got interested in olympians who competed in Berlin. I have not watched that movie yet because the edition I read was not that great but I did get the two confused in my head for a good while.
This book is about an Olympian runner named Louis Zamperini and he competed in the Berlin olympics in 1936. We learn about his life and childhood as a freaking hellian. He was a thief and all around bad boy. He was very close with his family and his older brother Pete helped train him and was all around his biggest cheerleader.
Louie ends up doing more mischeivious things in Germany and after his run, he met Hitlet.. I have to admit when I read that part I was hoping that Louie would not turn into a Nazi sympathizer. I got even more disturbed when Louie stole a Nazi flag off a building and the soldiers let him keep it because of how fast he ran in the Olympics. There is no more mention throughout the book of anything Nazi or Hitler.
He goes back home and joins the military and eventually gets drafted into the Air Force. He becomes a bombadier and fights in the Pacific Theatre. He eventually goes down with his crew in a bad airplane that everyone was frightened of because it was bad from the start and then it was used for spare parts, but every plane was flown.
Louie and two other crewman survive and are stranded on a raft for 47 days until they wash up on a Japanese occupied island, and that is where his horrorific tale as a POW for two-four years begins.
This book gave me a lot of emotions, especially anger at the Japanese and Germans and my own Government. There were so many bad choices and decisions during the war that I know I would have never forgiven anyone the way Louie forgave his captors and the monster who haunted his dreams and got away with his crimes.
Right away I knew that I was going to enjoy reading this book because of how it was written. I love a nonfiction that is written like a novel. It makes me forget that it is true until something shocking is revealed and I have to look it up and learn more about it. There is still so much more to learn about WW2.
I did skim some parts where it talked about the planes and schematics of the bombers. I just didn't care about that.
I can't wait to watch the movie and apparently there was a sequel made that is about Louie being freed and how he acclimated back into civilian life.
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