Unbroken

The POWs gave Watanabe the name of “the Bird” - a harmless nickname that would keep them from getting into trouble if they were ever caught talking about him. Because the men understood that the Bird especially hated Louie, Louie’s barracks mates gave him information and tips so that he could avoid Watanabe. Though international law forbade the use of POWs for slave labor, the Bird forced them to do hard labor. The POWs tried to sabotage the enemy while at work, or they stole goods. Sugar became currency among the prisoners, as “[i]n a place predicated on degradation, stealing from the enemy won back the men’s dignity” (244).

A kind officer by the name of Yukichi Kano distracted other Japanese officers while POWs stole food; he found ways to heat the infirmary, and he kept sick men away from the sadistic Japanese doctor.

A Japanese propaganda radio show, “Postman Calls,” invited prisoners to speak on the radio about how well they were being treated in the POW camps. The radio announcer sent a fake message to Mrs. Louise Zamperini that Louie was safe and healthy. Louie knew nothing of the broadcast, but a South African man named E.H. Stephan heard it. He filled out a card with the information he caught from the broadcast and sent the transcript to the United States. Because he could write only according to what he heard, the town and street address were incorrect, and the card finally turned up in Torrance in January 1945, three and half months after the South African man heard the report about Louie on the radio.

At the end of October 1944, a B-29 plane, a massive bomber that dwarfed the B-24, flew over Tokyo. It brought with it a renewed sense of hope and joy to the POWs trapped at Omori. The men’s happiness served to fuel the Bird’s rage. He ordered all the men to stand before him, and with his heavy, brass belt buckle flying, he whipped the side of Louie’s head, right on his temple, twice. As a result of this beating, “[f]or several weeks, Louie was deaf in his left ear” (252).

Sometime in mid-November 1944, Louie was invited on air by Radio Tokyo to record a message for the Postman Calls show. He had written his own speech in the form of a letter to his family, and it was approved for broadcast. Louie knew that in order to convince his family that it was indeed a letter he had written and that he was speaking, he peppered the letter with personal nuances. For example, Louie mentioned his gun collection, about which only his family would know. Lynn Moody, a transcriptionist at the Office of War Information, heard the broadcast and typed up the transcript. Moody knew Zamperini from USC so she took special interest in telling Louie’s story. The Zamperinis received phone calls from other people who heard the broadcast and then received a telegram (as typed by Moody) that stated that the transcript was from an “ENEMY PROPAGANDA BROADCAST FROM JAPAN [THAT HAD] BEEN INTERCEPTED” (258). The transcript could not be confirmed; the War office had officially declared Louie dead earlier in the year. The personal details that Louie included in his speech, however, were enough to convince his family that he was alive.

Louie eventually understood that his appearance on Postman Calls was nothing but a tool of Japanese propaganda. The radio station brought him in again to record a statement written by Radio Tokyo. The producers of the show fed him well and showed him a comfortable place to stay, but Louie refused. The radio producers claimed that he would be sent to “punishment camp”, but to Louie, nothing could be worse than Omori and the Bird. He returned to Omori, and the beatings continued.

On November 24, 111 B-29s flew to an aircraft factory, and the bombing of Tokyo commenced, continuing until November 30th. In December, the Bird’s behavior grew increasingly frightening as he yelled and wielded his sword: “Every escalation in the bombing brought a parallel escalation in [his] attacks on Louie” (265).

In America, the news that Louie and Phil were alive finally reached home. A card that Phil had written to his family in October arrived just before Christmas. Abroad, the Red Cross packages that the POWs were supposed to receive rarely ever made it to the hands of the men. On Christmas Eve, they finally were allowed to access the food they had been sent. The men found costumes and put on a musical version of Cinderella.

Early in the new year, the Bird was ordered to leave Omori. He threw himself a “going away” party, and the officers created a special gift for the Bird; they gathered stool from the sickest dysentery patients, combined it with gravy, and “slathered it over a stack of rice cakes” (270). Watanabe “ate heartily,” and Louie was overjoyed.

New men, including William Harris, were transferred to Omori. With the Bird gone, the treatment of the prisoners improved. Louie gave Harris his Red Cross box, although Harris barely recognized him. Harris’s health was so poor that the camp doctor believed he was dying.

On February 16, the men in Omori watched an air battle happening right above the camp. On the 24th, “the hammer fell” (274) as 229 B-29s bombed Tokyo. At the end of February, Louie along with fourteen other men was transferred to a camp called Naoetsu. The camp was covered in snow, and Louie soon found out that the Bird was the over-seer.