One of the Best World War II Books I’ve Read

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (author of Seabiscuit) is one of the best World War II (WWII) books I’ve read. It covers the amazing experiences of Louis Zamperini and those he served with during WWII, his inauspicious sometimes criminal early life in Torrence, California and, thanks to the persistence of his brother Peter, his introduction to running, which ultimately culminates with his participation in the Olympics, after setting many records during his high school years. 

After high school graduation Zamperini enlists, is sent to a post Pearl Harbor attack world on the island of Oahu where constant vigilance characterizes the need to stay on top of Japanese military moves, and watching out for their fighter planes known as Zeros in order to protect that beleaguered series of islands. The speed with which Japan invades countries gives reason for concern, as the author notes during this general time period Japan also “…attacked Thailand, Shanghai, Malaya, the Philippines, Guam, Midway, and Wake…The next day, it invaded Burma; a few days later, British Borneo. Hong Kong fell on Christmas; North Borneo, Rabaul, Manila, and the U.S. base in the Philippines fell in January. The British were driven from Malaya and into surrender in Singapore in seventy days. There was one snag: Wake, surely expected to be an easy conquest, wouldn’t give in.” In short order, “North to south, Japan’s new empire stretched five thousand miles, from the snowbound Aleutians to Java, hundreds of miles south of the equator. West to east, the empire sprawled over more than six thousand miles, from the border of India to the Gilbert and Marshall islands in the central Pacific. In the Pacific, virtually everything above Australia and west of the international date line had been taken by Japan.”

The early action of this book covers Zamperini’s WWII experiences training to be a bombardier in the U. S. Army Air Corps, assignment to the Pacific Theater in the Hawaiian Islands, a stunning battle he and the flying crew of plane “Super Man” engage in after bombing a Japanese target on the island of Nauru when finding themselves suddenly surrounded by nine Japanese Zeros as they pilot their plane referred to as a “flying coffin,” ultimately sustaining 500 hits only to approach their landing at 110 mph with no brakes. Chapter 9 which describes this battle is absolutely one of the most indelible, hair raising things I’ve ever read. This cohesive crew amply demonstrates their ability to think quickly and creatively in the heat of battle when unexpected challenges arise, a literal demonstration of operating “on a wing and a prayer.”

Middle action sequences involve the crew’s next assignment in a different plane, “The Green Hornet,” questionably reliable, despite their superior’s claim it’s flight worthy, ends in another crash followed by countless days in life rafts where sharks repeatedly bump raft bottoms with their dorsal fins, as the men struggle to survive fighting starvation and insanity, fending off an horrific episode of a Japanese plane repeatedly straffing the men’s rafts, and 2,000 miles later ultimately end up as POWs in a series of brutal Japanese prison camps. Without previous study of the POW experience in these various camps, readers could not even begin to imagine what prisoners were subjected to during such incarcerations in the years leading up to the war’s end. This well researched story is completely all consuming, stunning and unforgettable. 

The later part of the book involves the end of the war, liberation from POW camps, return to the US, post war emotional and psychological battles these veterans experience, as well reintegrating into the social and economic milieu with those who have no idea the toll their war time experiences extracts from them, and how they deal with it. This book is so worth the time to read.

Note: Although the Kindle identifies 671 pages in the book, there are effectively 531 pages of narrative including the Epilogue. The Author’s Acknowledgements start on page 531, with notes covering pages 543-644, followed by information about the author and “A Conversation with Laura Hillenbrand” interview.