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Unbroken is an awe-inspiring nonfiction story about the miraculous capacity of the human spirit, the will to survive, and the power of love to heal the deepest of wounds. Unbroken details the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympian who is drafted in WWII, stranded at sea, captured and imprisoned in a Japanese war camp, and survives. The story is peppered with research and historical exposition, placing Louie’s life in the larger context of WWII, which both grounds and amplifies its significance. The central conflict of the book is Louie’s fight to survive, and death’s antagonistic threat takes on many different forms throughout the narrative. In the book’s prologue, the Zeppelin that looms over California foreshadows the darkness of war that will overwhelm Louie’s country, family, and his own life.
In the opening of the story, Louie’s childhood and unparalleled talent as a track athlete are described, suggesting his unbeatable nature and fiery determination. After competing in the 1936 Olympics, Louie is drafted into the Air Force and sent to the Pacific front. He embarks on a few risky missions before his assignment to fly a particular B-24 plane, the Green Hornet, on a rescue search. In the inciting incident, the Green Hornet and its crew crash into the ocean, leaving Louie and two other men, Phil and Mac, stranded on a raft for 47 days. Here, Louie’s fight is against the natural forces that seek to take his life: dire thirst, sharks, lack of food, and scorching conditions. He and Phil survive the journey when they spot land, but their solace comes on Japanese-occupied territory and they are swiftly taken into captivity.
During the rising action, Louie struggles against human forces that seek to strip him of his rights, dignity, and life. In three different prisoner of war camps, Louie and the other POWs endure horrific beatings, torture, forced starvation, deadly disease, and conditions that make mental and physical survival nearly impossible. The men wage secret war against their captors through undercover communication, trade maneuvers, plots to escape, and most importantly, covert and widespread hope for rescue. Louie’s struggle against degradation is embodied most significantly in his interactions with one man, nicknamed the Bird, who is a disturbed and vile guard who particularly targets Louie at Omori, the second POW camp Louie endures. Louie survives countless moments where other men are killed at the hands of Japanese guards, a phenomenon that is almost puzzling, until he is taken to Tokyo and asked to become a puppet for anti-American propaganda. When Louie refuses, he is plunged back into life as a POW and transferred to Naoestu, where he yet again encounters the Bird and is sure his life will end.
At the story’s climax, the men at Naoetsu receive news that the war has ended and the Allied forces are victorious. Fearing the “kill-all” policy that officers often taunted, wherein all POWs would be killed at the war’s end before the chances of rescue were realized, Louie and the other men are hesitant to celebrate, until an American plane grazes over the ocean beside them. The pilot signals the reality of their freedom, and over the days that follow, the camps are showered with food, cigarettes, candy, alcohol, and pure morale. In the falling action, Louie is rescued and transported back to the U.S., and his battle to survive seems thoroughly conquered. However, the severe trauma he has endured echoes its sinister power over him even after he is reunited with his family, falls in love with and marries the ravishing Cynthia Applewhite, and has a daughter.
Post-traumatic stress disorder and corrosive alcoholism have a firm grip on Louie’s mind and body, and nearly rip Cynthia and his daughter out of his grasp, until Cynthia attends a Billy Graham revival. When she experiences profound spiritual transformation after hearing Graham preach, Cynthia urges Louie to attend. Though resistant and skeptical, Louie attends several meetings and at the second one, he has a powerful encounter with God, remembering a promise he made on the raft that he would give his life to God if God would save him. In a moment of surrender and what he describes as receiving profound love from God, Louie experiences a miraculous change inside his heart and mind, and he is immediately healed of his addictions and PTSD. In the story's resolution and epilogue, he offers forgiveness to all the officers who tortured him, including the Bird, opens a leadership camp for young boys, runs with the Olympic torch in the 1998 games, and lives to be 97. The story’s arc suggests that Louie’s true battle is against the culmination of natural, human, and internal forces of evil in the world and his deepest victory comes not with the ending of the second World War, but conquering the war within himself against addiction, trauma, rage, and unforgiveness.
