Captured By Grace [28 minute movie]

Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner turned bombardier, survived a plane crash and prisoner of war camps during WWII. He returned a hero, but his greatest battle was yet to come.

Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini (January 26, 1917 – July 2, 2014) was an American prisoner of war survivor in World War II, a Christian inspirational speaker, and an Olympic distance runner. Zamperini is the subject of two biographies and the 2014 film Unbroken....[which, being Hollywood, utterly excludes his conversion and its effects, perhaps because they could not show it as negative]

Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in September 1941[18] and earned a commission as a second lieutenant. He was deployed to the Pacific island of Funafuti as a bombardier on the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber Super Man. In April 1943, during a bombing mission against the Japanese-held island of Nauru, the bomber was badly damaged in combat. With Super Man no longer flight-worthy, and a number of the crew injured, the healthy crew members were transferred to Hawaii to await reassignment. Zamperini, along with some other former Super Man crewmates, was assigned to conduct a search for a lost aircraft and crew. They were given another B-24, The Green Hornet, notorious among the pilots as a defective "lemon". On May 27, 1943, while on the search, mechanical difficulties caused the bomber to crash into the ocean 850 miles (1,370 km) south[19] of Oahu, killing eight of the 11 men aboard.[20]

The three survivors (Zamperini and his crewmates, pilot Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips and Francis "Mac" McNamara), with little food and no water, subsisted on captured rainwater and small fish eaten raw. They caught two albatrosses, which they ate, and used pieces as bait to catch fish, all while fending off constant shark attacks and nearly being capsized by a storm.[21][22] They were strafed multiple times by a Japanese bomber, which punctured their life raft, but no one was hit. McNamara died after 33 days at sea.[20]

On their 47th day adrift, Zamperini and Phillips reached land in the Marshall Islands and were immediately captured by the Japanese Navy.[23] They were held in captivity, severely beaten, and mistreated until the end of the war in August 1945.

Initially held at Kwajalein Atoll, after 42 days they were transferred to the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at Ōfuna, for captives who were not registered as prisoners of war (POW). Zamperini was later transferred to Tokyo's Ōmori POW camp, and was eventually transferred to the Naoetsu POW camp in northern Japan, where he stayed until the war ended. He was tormented by prison guard Mutsuhiro "Bird" Watanabe, who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur's list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Held at the same camp was then-Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington, and in his book, Baa Baa Black Sheep, he discusses Zamperini and the Italian recipes Zamperini would write to keep the prisoners' minds off the food and conditions. Zamperini had at first been declared missing at sea, and then, a year and a day after his disappearance, KIA. When he eventually returned home, he received a hero's welcome.[20]...

Zamperini related that after the war, he had nightmares about strangling his former captors and began drinking heavily, trying to forget his experiences as a POW.[28] His wife Cynthia attended one of the evangelical crusades led by Billy Graham in Los Angeles, and became a born-again Christian.[24] In 1949, at the encouragement of his wife and her Christian friends, Zamperini reluctantly agreed to attend a crusade. Reminded by Graham's preaching of his prayers during his time on the life raft and imprisonment, Zamperini recommitted his life to Christ. Following this, he forgave his captors, and his nightmares ceased.[28]

Later Graham helped Zamperini launch a new career as a Christian inspirational speaker. One of his recurring themes was forgiveness, and he visited many of the guards from his POW days to let them know that he had forgiven them. This included an October 1950 visit to Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, where many war criminals were imprisoned, in which Zamperini embraced those who stepped forward to acknowledge that they recognized him, and expressed forgiveness to them. Zamperini told CBN that some became Christians in response.[28] Louis Zamperini Plaza on the campus of University of Southern California

Four days before his 81st birthday in January 1998, Zamperini ran a leg in the Olympic Torch relay for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, not far from the POW camp where he had been held. While there, he attempted to meet with his chief and most brutal tormentor during the war, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who had evaded prosecution as a war criminal, but Watanabe refused to see him.[29] In March 2005, Zamperini returned to Germany to visit the Berlin Olympic Stadium for the first time since he had competed there.[30]...

Zamperini appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on June 7, 2012, speaking about his life in general, the 1936 Olympics, and his World War II exploits.[32]

At the time of his death, Zamperini resided in Hollywood, California.[25]

His death had mistakenly been announced previously, when the US government classified him as KIA during World War II, after his B-24 Liberator aircraft went down in 1943, and no survivors were located by the military.[33] President Franklin D. Roosevelt even sent Zamperini's parents a formal condolence note in 1944.[24]

Zamperini's death came 70 years later, from pneumonia, on July 2, 2014, in Los Angeles, at home, aged 97. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini

After an early screening, Japanese nationalists asked for the film and the director to be banned from their country, due to their accusation that the film shows them in a negative stereotypical light.[26] In response, it triggered a petition by The Indo Project[27] voicing support for the movie as they see it as a reflection of what their family members in the former Dutch East Indies experienced in Japanese camps.[28] Several prominent Dutch Indos, including author Adriaan van Dis, Doe Maar-frontman Ernst Jansz, and actress Wieteke van Dort, have signed the petition in support of the film.[29] -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbroken_%28film%29

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