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Daboura 1 Maya Daboura Professor Sabrina Jimenez History-101-71 19 March 2022 Louis Zamperini: The Story of a True American Hero Louis Silvie Zamperini was born on January 26, 1917, in the hamlet of Olean, New York, to Italian immigrant parents. Zamperini grew raised in Torrance, California, and realized he had a talent for long-distance running while attending Torrance High School. Zamperini set the national high school mile mark in 1934, and his timing of 4 minutes and 21.2 seconds remained unbroken for the next 20 y ears. His track abilities drew the attention of the University of Southern California, where he was awarded a scholarship. Beyond,It wasn't long before Zamperini was pursuing his passion for track and field, and in 1936 he traveled to New York City for the 5,000-meter Olympic trials. The race, which took place on Randall's Island, pitted Zamperini against Don Lash, the current world record holder in the sport. The race ended in a dead heat between the two runners, and Zamperini's performance was good enough to qualify him for the 1936 Berlin Olympics when he was still a teenager. Daboura 2

Zamperini graduated from USC in 1940, the year in which he would have had another chance at Olympic gold had World War II not intervened. After the World War II broke out, the 1940 Olympics were scrapped, and Zamperini was recruited in the Army Air Corps. At the time, Zamperini was in his early twenties. He became a bombardier on the B-24 Bomber, and in May 1943, he and a crew embarked on a flight mission to find a pilot whose plane, the Green Hornet, had crashed. Zamperini's plane crashed into the ocean while flying over the Pacific Ocean. Only Zamperini and two other airmen survived the accident, but aid was nowhere to be found, leaving the men trapped on a raft for 47 days. The survivors endured a terrifying month and a half at sea, suffering from the relentless heat, strafing raids by Japanese planes, circling sharks, and a lack of drinking water. To subsist, they gathered rainwater and slaughtered birds that occurred to land on the raft. Zamperini's survival marked the start of his odyssey. He was seized by Japanese soldiers and transferred to a POW camp after living on a raft at sea for more than six weeks. For the next two years, Zamperini was subjected to cruel treatment by the Japanese commander who chose to make an example of him. But, no matter how bad things became, Zamperini refused to break. Zamperini's fame as a former Olympian rescued him from death by the Japanese, but it also saw him singled out for particular treatment. Guards at the Ofuna interrogation camp forced a frail and malnourished Zamperini to compete in foot races against

Japanese rivals, then beat him with clubs when he had the audacity to win. Later, authorities from Radio Tokyo summoned him to their studio and attempted to persuade him to broadcast Daboura 3 propaganda messages over the air. ls at Radio Tokyo hauled him into their studio and tried to persuade him to read propaganda messages over the air. The Japanese wanted to use him as a weapon to undermine American morale and portray the US administration as inept but Zamperin refused to collaborate with them. Zamperini was freed together with hundreds of other prisoners of war in the Naoetsu camp, northwest of Tokyo, at the end of the war in 1945. Here and there, one of the most remarkable aspects of him, which I feel makes him a "prism of history," is his ability to endure the beatings, physical pain, and anguish. He possessed a great level of self-discipline as well as self-confidence, which helped him deal with what he was going through and never give up. Despite threats that he would be sentenced to a punishment camp, he refused to comply with the Japanese. Secondly, Zamperini's parents were Italian immigrants who didn't speak English. Zamperini had to learn Italian first because that was the language spoken at home. Louis Zamperini, on the other hand, grew up in Torrance, California. Where English is the primary spoken language, he became bilingual as a result.

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There are other more factors that contribute to Zamperini's status as a historical prism. For example, because he was an Italian-American, Zamperini encountered a wide range of cultural experiences. In many respects, the elements of Italian American culture has a strong effect on his ideas, values, and way of life. Zamperini, on the other hand, had attended the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Germany and saw a very different culture there. In addition, he had visited Japan. All Daboura 4 of these distinct cultures had an impact on him and the way he looks at things. Lastly, though Zamperini did not grow up a devout Christian, the biography claims that there were several moments throughout his journey when he sensed God's intervention and the seed for religious faith was sown. Zamperini's faith grew as he spent 47 days on the raft, thirsty, and starving, alongside fellow soldiers Phil and Mac, the only other survivors of the accident. Meaning the experience he went through made him religious and changed his beliefs regarding the idea of god and its existence. Generally speaking, When Zamperini returned to society, he endured some difficult years, but his experience in life helped him to reorient his objectives and live an optimistic life. In this spirit of hope, Zamperini lived to be nearly 100 years old, filling those years with a meaningful story that teaches us to never give up, no matter what.

Daboura 5 Work cited ● Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Book. ● https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrWmjyuITZiWhMA_AAPxQt.;_ylu=Y29sbw NncTEEcG9zAzcEdnRpZANQSFhZSFNDXzEEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1647743 535/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2feveryday-reading.com%2funbroken-world-war -ii-story-of-surviva%2f/RK=2/RS=PrWFEKuw6U2.ghZmuan3XWgP_uM- ● www.barnesandnoble.com%2fw%2funbroken-laura-hillenbrand%2f1100045446/ RK=2/RS=S67vjxZEh4urNP.hHi6bkmiDq_U-

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