Louis "Louie" Silvie Zamperini Timeline & Summary
MoreLouis "Louie" Silvie Zamperini Timeline & Summary
- As a young boy, Louie causes a lot of trouble around town until his brother convinces him to join the track team as a teenager.
- Louie ends up being a track superstar. He breaks records, and almost breaks the four-minute mile.
- In 1936, Louie attends the Olympic Games in Berlin.
- While training for the next Olympics, WWII breaks out, and Louie enlists in the army air corp.
- His first plane, the Super Man, is shot down, but Louie and his crew (except one) survive.
- They're transferred to a clunkier plane, the Green Hornet, which gets shot down over the Pacific.
- Only Louie, Phil, and Mac survive.
- Louie manages to keep the men alive by catching rain water and fish to feed them.
- Unfortunately Mac dies, but Louie and Phil live at sea for forty-six days.
- They find an island… that is occupied by Japanese. They're captured and put into a POW camp.
- Louie is shipped from camp to camp, many times being tortured by a sadistic Japanese guard nicknamed the Bird.
- When the war ends, Louie gets to return home.
- He meets and marries Cynthia, but grapples with alcoholism and PTSD.
- Eventually Louie finds faith at a Billy Graham gathering, and forgives everyone who hurt him during the war.
- Years later, he almost gets the opportunity to forgive the Bird (who'd faked his own death), but the Bird ends up declining to meet Louie.
- Louie carries the Olympic torch past Naoetsu, where he was once imprisoned, giving him great closure.