Unbroken laura hillenbrand

Unbroken Timeline

By alund

  • Louie was born in Olean, New York.

  • The story begins as Louie is sitting in his room as a 12-year-old boy.

  • The rehabilitation of Louie began. (him turning his life around)

  • Louie ran all summer long, training.

  • Louie began his studies at Compton, in the fall.

  • Pete got Louie into track and began training him

  • Louie began 10th grade.

  • The track season began for Louie.

  • Louie began setting records in long distance.

  • Louie won the 1933 Cross Country two-mile race by more than a quarter of a mile.

  • Louie’s supreme high school moment came in the 1934 Southern California Track and Field Championship.

  • Louie graduated from high school.

  • Louie stumbled upon the Compton Open, a prestigious track meet to be held at the Los Angeles Coliseum on May 22. This would be his ticket to the Olympics

  • Louie made quick work of another Olympic qualifier, ending up getting invited to the final of the Olympic trials

  • The residents of Torrance gathered to see Louie off to New York.

  • Louie Zamperini was on his way to Germany to compete in the Olympics, being the youngest distance runner to ever make the team

  • Louie returned from dinner after he ate the biggest meal of his life.

  • At the trials, Louie won leaving his hometown cheering.

  • Louie and the other Olympians were driven through Berlin for the opening ceremonies.

  • Louie beat his personal last lap record by more than eight seconds at the Olympics

  • Hitler spoke to Louie, “Ah, you’re the boy with the fast finish.”

  • Louie packed his belongings and left his room in the Olympic Village

  • Louie arrived in Torrance, where a parade was waiting to celebrate.

  • Louie began thinking of running in the 1940 Olympics, in Tokyo, Japan

  • Louie found himself at the University of Southern California

  • Cunningham told reporters the Louie would be the “next mile champion”.

  • Louie arrived at the NCAA Championship in Minneapolis, gunning for 4 minutes.

  • Louie ran the fastest NCAA mile in history- 4:08.3

  • Japan withdrew as host of the 1940 Olympics and the games were transferred the Finland.

  • Louie beat Cunningham twice.

  • At the Boston Garden, Louie ran a 4:08.2, six-tenths of a second short of the fastest indoor mile ever ran

  • Louie joined the Army Air Corps.

  • The Olympics got canceled.

  • He arrived at Ellington Field, in Houston, Texas. The military was going to make him a bombardier.

  • Oahu was beginning to stir.

  • Japanese planes dove over Oahu, more than two thousand miles to the west

  • In less than two hours, Japan had badly wounded the American navy and killed more than 2,400 people.

  • In America, invasion was expected at any moment

  • There were four air raids in San Francisco.

  • Japan invaded the Philippines and seized Guam

  • A vast force launched an invasion attempt.

  • The Japanese seized Wake and captured the men on it.

  • The Zamperinis gathered on the front steps for a last photograph.

  • Louie graduated from Midland, and was commissioned a second lieutenant.

  • 590 airmen would die stateside, 19 per day.

  • Japan seized Nauru.

  • The men of the 372nd were told to pack their bags, their training was being cut short.

  • The squadron flew out of Iowa.

  • Louie called home for a last goodbye.

  • Phil's cerw climbed aboard SUPER MAN and readied for war.

  • The crew still hadn't seen any Japanese.

  • The crew were notified about the Japanese and took off in SUPER MAN.

  • Twenty-six B-24s, rose up midway.

  • The mission had been a success, with all planes returning safely.

  • One of SUPERMAN'S engines sputtered and died on the way back from the air battle.

  • The crew prepared to land a three-plane training run over Pearl Harbor.

  • Louie recorded in his diary ten serious mechanical problems in SUPERMAN.

  • The crew had its first encounter with exploding sharks.

  • SUPERMAN found a missing B-25 plane.

  • The crew was called to Nauru.

  • SUPERMAN waa dying after being in battle.

  • SUPERMAN made it safely back to base, in horrible condition.

  • Harold Brooks, one of the crewmen, died.

  • Funafuti was under attack.

  • Louie boarded a plane and began his journey back to Hawaii.

  • Louie, Phil, and the other SUPERMAN veterans were transferred to teh 42nd squadron of the 11th bomb group.

  • Louie and the others packed their belongings and ventured to their new destination.

  • Louie turned a mile in 4:12, running in sand.

  • The crew started on a rescue mission in the GREEN HORNET.

  • GREEN HORNET reached the search area.

  • The plane began to fall because of an engine fail.

  • Phil grunted, "prepare to crash."

  • Louie, Phil, and Mac were the only crewmen that survived the crash.

  • The DAISY MAE crew touched back down and base and were told that the GREEN HORNET was missing.

  • Two planes went searching for Green Hornet.

  • GREEN HORNET was declared missing.

  • The men ran out of chocolate after the tail gunner, Mac, ate it all.

  • The men spotted DAISY MAE as it passed over them.

  • Mac began to have mental problems.

  • Intensive searching had yielded nothing.

  • The Cuppernell and Zamperini families were notified of the plane going missing.

  • The news of Louie's disappearance headlined California newspapers and led radio broadcasts.

  • On Oahu, Louie's friends gathered in a barracks and hung a flag in memory of him.

  • The men had gone three days without water.

  • Louie killed a bird after the men had suffered days without food.

  • While trying to get the the island, Phil and Louie drifted into what they thought was a typhoon.

  • The men were caught by the Japanese when they were trying to paddle to an island.

  • The men spotted another plane, it was a Japanese bomber that shot at the men.

  • A very big shark began to circle the raft.

  • The men were weighed, each measuring at about half their original weight,

  • Mac passed away, Louie and Phil pushed his body overboard.

  • Louie and Phil were reaching the last stage of starvation.

  • Louie began to see figures, silhoutted against the sky.

  • The men saw an island on the horizon.

  • The men get stuck in what they believed was a typhoon, on their way to the island.

  • Louise Zamperini penned a letter to Major General Willis Hale, telling him to not give up searching.

  • The men got caught while paddling on shore by a Japanese boat.

  • The men were getting transferred to Kwajalein, it was the place known as Execution Island.

  • The freighter arrived and took Louie and Phil into the hold and housed separately.

  • Louie got taken from his cell by two men, to be interrogated.

  • A new guard, named Kawamura was put in Louie's section, and he was unlike the others. He was very nice and respectful.

  • Louie was pulled from his cell again to be interrogated again.

  • The Japanese began giving Louie, Phil and other prisoners infusions causing them great pain and even death.

  • Louie and Phil were going to be taken to Yokohama, Japan- a POW camp.

  • The men were stripped, splashed with a bucket of water, and allowed to dress again, and taken toward the shipt that would carry them to Japan.

  • The ship docked at Yokohama.

  • Louie reunited with his college friend Jimmie Sasaki.

  • Louie and Phil were put in a POW camp called Ofuna.

  • Ofuna had a duck named Gaga, who bobbed around at camp.

  • Louie's army trunk was delivered to his parents.

  • Snow began to fall and nearly every captive became ill.

  • A Japanese newspaper editor came to camp looking for Louie, The guards became fascinated with his past and began to make Louie run against other people.

  • The men in Ofuna had a taste of liberation.

  • The Americans had gone after the Japanese bases in the Marshall Islands, sending waves of bombers.

  • America seized Kwajalein.

  • Joe Deasy read a report stating that Louie and Phil were in Japan, he had found out they were still alive.

  • More than 500 Japanese planes had been lost, only 80 American planes had been lost.

  • Phil was transferred to another POW camp, Zentsuji.

  • Louie severly injured his ankle and knee, leaving him to plea for a job from the Bird to get more food. The Bird gave him the job of being responsible for the pig in the compound.

  • Louie's official death date.

  • Summer- Tinker and Louie began to hatch an escape plan.

  • The men of GREEN HORNET were declared dead.

  • Louie took the job to work as a barber for the guards to get extra food.

  • The guards gave Louie a Japanses almanac.

  • Louie, Tinker, Duva, and several other men were told that they were being transferred to Omori.

  • Louie met Watanabe, the man that would dedicate himself to shattering him.

  • A program called POSTMAN CALLS began its evening airing on Radio Tokyo, airing a message from Louie to his family.

  • A wondrous American plane lifted off the runray on Saipan.

  • Louie was visited by a Radio Tokyo man who delivered the news that he had a death declaration back home. Louie would go to the man's studio to announce that he was alive.

  • A woman named Lynn Moody heard Louie's voice on his announce that he was not dead.

  • Louie's parents were delivered a $10,000 life insurance payout.

  • Lynn Moody heard another announcement from Louie and called Louie's parents.

  • Louie refused to do another announcement because the Japanese were putting words in his mouth.

  • The Tokyo sirens began to howl, American B-29s arrived all over the sky.

  • 81 bombers went over the POW camp.

  • The Bird left camp for several days and came back making to men fun through fake fire drills for hours.

  • Kelsey Phillip's got a phone call from the War Department stating that Allen was alive.

  • An American convoy was spotted near Palawan.

  • Louie was becoming overwhelmed with starvation.

  • The guards suddenly began screaming that there were enemy planes coming.

  • The Bird ordered all the men to a truck filled with fruit and told them to take two pieces. After enough pictures were taken, the men were ordered to put the food back.

  • Some RedCross packages were finally handed out and Louie got one,

  • The POWs put on a play for the guards amusement. (Cinderella)

  • The Bird was ordered to leave Omori.

  • Bill Harris and some other men were transferred to Omori.

  • Sleet was falling over Omori.

  • Sixteen hundred carrier-based planes flew past Omori and bombed Tokyo.

  • Louie had a race renamed in his honor- The Louis S. Zamperini Invitational.

  • Harris and some other men were transferred to a different camp.

  • The POWs began their journey to Naoetsu.

  • When Louie got to the opening of the new camp, the Bird greeted him.

  • A B-29 crossed over Naoetsu, the first Superfortress. - this showed how far the Japanese were letting America venture and how little resistance the Japanese could offer.

  • The Bird told the POWs that President Roosevelt was dead.

  • The sound of four massive engines broke the silence over Naoetsu, it was a B-29 turning circles around the village and dropping bombs.

  • Four hundred new POWs tramped through the gates and halted in the compound.

  • Murder squads were formed, planning to kill the Bird, and Louie got in on them.

  • Louie's leg was somewhat healed, so he was sent back to shovel coal and salt.

  • Louie was mischeived as a theif and was punched in the face for 2 hours by every POW and officer,

  • A report was recovered by the POWs that stated they would be liquidated on September 15th.

  • Another report reached the POWs, stating that all of them would be killed on August 22.

  • The Bird put Louie in charge of a goat, stating that "Goat die, you die."

  • The goat died after someone untied Louie's knot and it gorged itself ill.

  • Louie held a beam above his head, instructed by the Bird, for 37 minutes

  • The camp shook as many U.S. Superfortresses passed over. America was staging for the biggest air raid.

  • Louie was beginning to have trouble eating, his dysentery was extremely severe.

  • The Bird told Louie that he was going to drown him.

  • A B-29 skipped off Runway Able on Tinian Island.

  • The B-29 dropped atomic bombs, causing the city of Hiroshima to "boil".

  • Nagasaki disappeared.

  • Louie woke gravely ill, having some twenty bloody bowel movements a day.

  • The men were told by officers that "the war was over".

  • Louie continued to grow sicker, stating that "Look like skeleton, feel weak."

  • At Rokuroshi, the camp that Phil was at, the phone rang, which was a rare occasion. This caused the Japanese commander to hurry out of camp and down the mountain.

  • There was a shout in the Rokuroshi compound, all POWs were to assemble outside. They were told that, "The war has come to a point of cessation."

  • The Omori camp official invited the POWs to bathe in the Hokura River. Louie was bathing as a plane crossed overhead, using signals to notify the men that the war was over. Louie and the other men cried and stampeded around the compound, happily.

  • The plane that flew overhead (the bomber) dropped multiple gifts to all the POWs, some including candy, cigarettes, and magazines.

  • Conspirators came to the camp, but the Bird was nowhere to be found, he had left camp the day before and fled into the Naoetsu countryside.

  • Phil and Fred Garrett sat in the Rokuroshi POW camp, wondering what was happening. The were isolated on the mountain, and told nothing about what had gone on in th e past five days.

  • SIx days after the war's end was announced in Naoetsu- a crowd of American fighter planes, sent from the carrier Lexington, shot overhead and began to circle. The planes were hauling emergency supplies to POWs and they promised that food would come soon.

  • Three days after the fighters flew over, the Americans sent in the big boys: six B-29s. The bomb bay doors parted and pallets poured down, giving civilians and POWs food.

  • A B-29, known as GHOST SHIP, traced the long thread of beach marking the coast of western Japan. It was carrying supplies to Naoetsu.

  • Japan signed its formal surrender, and the Second World War was over.

  • Fitsgerald was told that this would be the day that an evacuation team would come to Naoetsu. However, the team never showed up.