Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

the paper and asked them not to print the death notice; her son, she told them, was not gone. The editors honored her request. Russell Allen Phillips had officially been declared dead, but no obituary appeared.
    The feeling in the Zamperini home was the same as in the Phillipses’. When the initial shock from the death notice faded, all of the Zamperinis realized that it changed nothing. The notice had been generated as a bureaucratic matter of course, a designation made for all missing servicemen after thirteen months had passed. Louie’s official death date was listed as May 28, 1944, a year and a day after his plane had vanished. The notice was just a piece of paper. “None of us believed it. None of us,” Sylvia would say. “Never once. Not underneath, even.”
    Inside themselves, the Zamperinis still felt that persistent little echo of Louie, the sense that he was still in the world somewhere. Until it was gone, they would go on believing that he was alive.
    During family dinners, Pete and his father began drawing up plans to hunt for Louie. When the war was over, they’d rent a boat and sail from island to island until they found him. They’d go on for as long as it took.

Twenty-two
Plots Afoot

    T HE PLOT BEGAN WITH A QUESTION. IT WAS THE SUMMER of 1944, and Louie and Frank Tinker were walking together in the Ofuna compound. Louie could hear small planes coming and going from an airstrip somewhere in the distance, and the sound started him thinking. If we could get out of here, he asked Tinker, could you fly a Japanese plane?
    “If it has wings,” Tinker replied.
    From that brief exchange, an idea took root. Louie, Tinker, and Harris were going to escape.
    ——

    They’d been driven to this point by a long, desperate spring and summer. Every day, the men were slapped, kicked, beaten, humiliated, and driven through forced exercises. There were sudden explosions of violence that left captives spilled over the ground, hoping they wouldn’t be killed. And that spring, the central authorities had cut rations to all prisoners dramatically. With only about half of the official ration ending up in the captives’ bowls, the men were wasting away. When the Japanese weighed the captives, Bill Harris, over six feet tall, tipped the scale at 120 pounds. He had developed beriberi.
    Louie was driven to ever more reckless efforts to find food. He stolean onion and secretly cooked it under a water heater, but divided between several men, it didn’t amount to much. He stole a package of miso paste and, when the guards weren’t looking, shoveled it into his mouth and swallowed it in one gulp, not knowing that miso paste is extremely concentrated, meant to be diluted in water. He was soon doubled over behind the barracks, heaving his guts out. He was so mad for food that he snuck from his cell late at night, broke into the kitchen, and crammed his mouth full of chestnuts that were to be served to the guards. When he looked up, Shithead was there, watching him. Louie backed away, then sprinted back to his cell. Shithead didn’t beat him for it, but the guard’s appearance was enough to scare Louie out of another go at the kitchen. The best he could do was volunteer to starch the guards’ shirts. The starch was made from rice water pressed through cloth; after Louie pressed the rice, he spent the rest of his time picking flecks of it off the cloth and eating them.
    Finally, opportunity knocked. Camp officials asked for a volunteer to work as barber for the guards, offering payment of one rice ball per job. The idea of working around the guards was intimidating, but Louie had to eat. When he came forward, he was given not just electric clippers but a straight razor. He’d never used one before, and he knew what the guards would do to him if they were nicked. He took the razor to his cell and practiced on himself until he could shave without drawing blood. When he walked out to do his first job, the guard balled up his fist at him, then made a demand that, to an American, seemed bizarre. He wanted his forehead shaved, a standard barbering practice in Japan. All of the guards expected Louie to do this. Louie managed not to cut anyone, and the rice balls kept him alive.
    A notoriously cruel guard called the Weasel began coming to Louie for shaves, but every time, he left without paying. Louie knew what he would risk in evening the score, but he couldn’t resist. While shaving the Weasel’s forehead, he let the