http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/story/war-hero-olympian-louis-zamperini-dies-at-97-berlin-1936-wwii-world-war-japan-070314
War hero, Olympian Louis Zamperini dies at 97
For anyone who has not yet read "UNBROKEN" by Laura Hillenbrand, please do so. We were so impressed with the life story of this one man. He certainly was a survivor, despite extreme hardship and deprivation.
"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption," is one that I put on my kindle while staying at The Villages......it was a page turner which I couldn't put down..........my husband, at my request, also downloaded it to his kindle......and also found it riveting.
We can't wait to see Angelina Jolie's movie which comes out in December.
"It was Zamperini's incredible World War II story that captured the imagination of millions back home."
"He was a bombardier on a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber that crashed in the Pacific Ocean during a reconnaissance mission. He and one of the other surviving crew members drifted for 47 days on a raft in shark-infested waters, drinking rain water and eating fish and birds they caught with their bare hands, before being captured by Japanese forces. A third man died before they reached land."
"Forty-seven days in a raft, you learn the value of water more than anything in the world," he told the AP in a 2003 interview. "We prayed for rain to have something to drink. When you're hungry, you eat anything. We caught a shark. We caught an albatross that tasted like a hot fudge sundae."
His treatment while imprisoned was horrific......but he survived.