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

by Laura Hillenbrand

  In training, Louie and Phil had memorized the geography of the central Pacific. They knew that the islands ahead had to be part of the Gilberts or Marshalls, enemy territory. Between them, the two island groups had dozens of atolls and islands, so there was a good likelihood that there were places unoccupied by the Japanese. Louie and Phil decided to hang offshore until they found an island that looked uninhabited, or inhabited only by natives. They began rowing over the wind-chapped sea, turning parallel to the islands so they could wait until night to slip ashore.

  The sky broke all at once. A sudden, slashing rain came down, and the islands vanished. The ocean began heaving and thrashing. The wind slapped the raft in one direction, then another, sending it spinning up swells, perhaps forty feet, then careening down into troughs as deep as canyons. Phil and Louie had drifted into what was almost certainly a typhoon.

  Wave after wave slammed into the raft, tipping it sideways and peeling it upward, on the verge of overturning. To try to stop it from flipping, Louie and Phil bailed in water as ballast, positioned themselves on opposite sides to balance their weight, and lay on their backs to keep the center of gravity low. Knowing that if they were thrown loose, they’d never get back in, Louie reeled in the raft cord, looped it around the cushion sewn into the center of the raft, threaded it through a grommet, then wound it around his waist and Phil’s waist, pulling it taut. They pushed their feet under the cushion, leaned back, and held on.

  Night fell, and the storm pounded. The raft raced up and down hundreds of mountains of water. At times, in the darkness, they felt the strange lightness of flying as the raft was swept into the air off the tops of the waves. Louie felt more intensely afraid than he had felt as Green Hornet was falling. Across from him, Phil lay in grim silence. Both men thought of the nearness of the land they could no longer see. They feared that any second, they’d be flung into a reef.

  Sometime in the night, the storm sagged and softened, then moved on.* The swells remained, but their tops became smooth. Louie and Phil freed themselves from the raft cord and awaited daylight.

  In the dark, they could smell soil, greenness, rain washing over living things. It was the smell of land. It flirted with them all night, growing stronger. As dawn neared, they could hear the hiss of water scouring a reef. Exhausted, they decided to take turns napping, with one man on the lookout for land. Somewhere along the way, they both fell asleep.

  ——

  They woke in a new universe. They had drifted into the embrace of two small islands. On one island, they saw huts, trees heavy with fruit, but no people. They had heard of the Japanese enslaving native populations and moving them en masse off their home islands, and they thought that perhaps this had been the fate of this island’s inhabitants. They pulled their shoes over their sore-pocked feet and began rowing for shore. From overhead came the whine of engines. They looked up and saw Zeros looping through combat maneuvers, far too high for their pilots to notice the raft below. They rowed on.

  Louie had predicted that they’d find land on the forty-seventh day. Phil had chosen the day before. Because they had spotted land on the day Phil had chosen and were about to reach it on the day Louie had chosen, they decided that they had both been right.

  They could see more islands now. Louie spotted a tiny island to their left and pointed it out to Phil, describing it as having one tree on it. Then a strange thing happened. The lone tree became two trees. After a moment’s confusion, the men suddenly understood. It wasn’t an island, and those weren’t trees. It was a boat. It had been perpendicular to them, leaving only one mast visible, and then it had turned, bringing the rearward mast into view.

  Louie and Phil ducked. They rowed as fast as they could, trying to get to shore before the sailors spotted them. They were too late. The boat made a sharp turn and sped toward them. The weakened men couldn’t row fast enough to escape. They gave up and stopped.

  The boat drew alongside the raft, and Louie and Phil looked up. Above them was a machine gun, mounted on the boat’s bow. Along the deck stood a line of men, all Japanese. Each one held a weapon, pointed at the castaways.

  One of the Japanese opened his shirt and pointed to his chest. He seemed to want the Americans to do the same. As Louie opened his shirt, he braced himself, expecting to be shot, but no shot came. The man had only wanted to see if they were armed.

  One of the sailors threw a rope at the raft, and Louie caught it. Louie and Phil tried to climb onto the boat, but their legs were too weak. The sailors brought out a rope ladder, tied the castaways to it, and dragged them up, then pulled the raft aboard. On the deck, Louie and Phil attempted to rise, but their legs buckled. The Japanese were impatient for the men to move across the deck, so the Americans crawled on all fours. When they reached the mast, they were picked up and lashed to it. Their hands were bound behind their backs.

  One of the sailors began speaking to them in Japanese. He seemed to be asking questions. Louie and Phil offered responses, trying to guess what the man wanted to know. A soldier waved a bayonet past Louie’s face, trying to hack off his beard. Another man cracked a pistol across Phil’s jaw, then moved to do the same to Louie. Louie tipped his head forward in hopes that the sailor would aim for the front of his face; when the sailor swung, Louie jerked his head back. The man missed, but Louie smacked his head against the mast.

  The boat’s captain approached and chastised the crewmen. The mood changed, and Louie’s and Phil’s hands were untied. Someone gave the castaways cigarettes, but the ends kept lighting their beards on fire. Someone else brought them cups of water and one biscuit each. Louie took a bite of the biscuit and held it in his mouth, caressing it, feeling the flavor. He ate slowly, savoring each crumb. It was his first food in eight days.

  ——

  A second boat pulled alongside the first. Louie and Phil were helped onto it, and it began moving. As it sailed, a crewman came to the castaways and fed them more biscuits and some coconut. Then a young sailor approached, Japanese-English dictionary in hand, and asked questions. Phil and Louie gave brief accounts of their journey.

  In time, the boat drew up to a large island. A sailor approached with two blindfolds and tied them around Louie’s and Phil’s heads. Men got on either side of them, grabbed their arms, and half-dragged, half-carried them off the boat. After a few minutes, Louie felt himself being laid down on something soft. His blindfold was taken off.

  He was inside an infirmary, lying on a soft mattress on an iron bed. Phil was on a bed beside his. There was a small window nearby, and through it, he could see Japanese soldiers thrusting bayonets into dummies. An officer spoke to the Japanese surrounding the castaways, then spoke in English, apparently repeating his statement so Louie and Phil would understand him.

  “These are American fliers,” he said. “Treat them gently.”

  A doctor came in, smiled warmly, and examined Phil and Louie, speaking English. He smoothed ointment on their salt sores and burned lips, palpated their abdomens, took their temperatures and pulses, and pronounced them healthy. Louie and Phil were helped to their feet and led to a scale. They took turns standing on it, each with a man ready to catch him if his legs failed.

  Phil had weighed about 150 pounds when he had stepped aboard Green Hornet. Louie’s war diary, begun shortly after he arrived in Hawaii, noted that he weighed 155 pounds. He believed that weight training had added another 5 pounds by the time of the crash. Now Phil weighed about 80 pounds. According to different accounts, five-foot, ten-inch Louie weighed 67 pounds, 79.5 pounds, or 87 pounds. Whatever the exact number, each man had lost about half of his body weight, or more.

  On the doctor’s orders, in came a bottle of Russian cognac and two glasses, which Louie and Phil quickly emptied. Then came a platter of eggs, ham, milk, fresh bread, fruit salad, and cigarettes. The castaways dug in. When they were done, they were helped into another room and seated before a group of Japanese officers, who gaped at the shrunken, canary yellow men. An officer, speaking En
glish, asked how they had ended up there. Louie told the story as the Japanese listened in silent fascination, tracing the journey on a map.

  Louie and Phil knew where their journey had begun, but did not yet know where it had ended. The officers told them. They were on an atoll in the Marshall Islands. They had drifted two thousand miles.

  As Japanese servicemen crowded around, the raft was spread out and the bullet holes counted. There were forty-eight. The curious servicemen pressed toward the Americans, but the officers kept them back. An officer asked Louie where the bullet holes had come from. Louie replied that a Japanese plane had strafed them. The officer said that this was impossible, a violation of their military code of honor. Louie described the bomber and the attack. The officers looked at one another and said nothing.

  Two beds were made up, and Louie and Phil were invited to get as much rest as they wished. Slipping between cool, clean sheets, their stomachs full, their sores soothed, they were deeply grateful to have been received with such compassion. Phil had a relieved thought: They are our friends.

  Louie and Phil stayed in the infirmary for two days, attended by Japanese who cared for them with genuine concern for their comfort and health. On the third day, the deputy commanding officer came to them. He brought beef, chocolate, and coconuts—a gift from his commander—as well as news. A freighter was coming to transport them to another atoll. The name he gave sent a tremor through Louie: Kwajalein. It was the place known as Execution Island.

  “After you leave here,” Louie would long remember the officer saying, “we cannot guarantee your life.”

  ——

  The freighter arrived on July 15. Louie and Phil were taken into the hold and housed separately. The captain had bountiful portions of food sent to them. The prisoners ate all they could.

  One of the cruelties of starvation is that a body dying of hunger often rejects the first food it is given. The food on the atoll had apparently agreed with the castaways, but not the food on the freighter. Louie spent much of that day hunched over the ship railing, vomiting into the sea, while a guard held him. Phil’s meal left him almost as quickly, but by a different route; that evening, he had to be taken on at least six runs to the head.

  As the freighter drew up to Kwajalein on July 16, the Japanese became harsh. On came the blindfolds, and Louie and Phil were taken onto what seemed to be a barge. When the barge stopped, they were picked up, heaved over men’s shoulders, and carried. Louie felt himself bobbing through the air, then slapped down on a hard surface. Phil was dropped beside him. Louie said something to Phil, and immediately felt a boot kick into him as a voice shouted, “No!”

  An engine started, and they were moving. They were on the flatbed of a truck. In a few minutes, the truck stopped, and Louie was tugged out and flung over a shoulder again. There was walking, two steps up, a darkening, the sense that Phil was no longer near him, and the disorienting feeling of being thrown backward. Louie’s back struck a wall, and he fell to a floor. Someone yanked off his blindfold. A door slammed, a lock turned.

  At first, Louie could barely see. His eyes darted about uncontrollably. His mind raced, flitting incoherently from thought to thought. After weeks of endless openness, he was disoriented by the compression of the space around him. Every nerve and muscle seemed in a panic.

  Slowly, his thoughts quieted and his eyes settled. He was in a wooden cell, about the length of a man and not much wider than his shoulders. Over his head was a thatched roof, about seven feet up. The only window was a hole, about a foot square, in the door. The floor was strewn with gravel, dirt, and wiggling maggots, and the room hummed with flies and mosquitoes, already beginning to swarm onto him. There was a hole in the floor with a latrine bucket below it. The air hung hot and still, oppressive with the stench of human waste.

  Louie looked up. In the dim light, he saw words carved into the wall: NINE MARINES MAROONED ON MAKIN ISLAND, AUGUST 18, 1942. Below that were names: Robert Allard, Dallas Cook, Richard Davis, Joseph Gifford, John Kerns, Alden Mattison, Richard Olbert, William Pallesen, and Donald Roberton.

  In August 1942, after a botched American raid on a Japanese base at Makin in the Marshall Islands, nine marines had been mistakenly left behind. Captured by the Japanese, they had disappeared. Louie was almost certainly the first American to learn that they had been taken to Kwajalein. But other than Phil and Louie, there were no prisoners here now. Louie felt a wave of foreboding.

  He called to Phil. Phil’s voice answered, distant and small, somewhere to the left. He was down the hall in a squalid hole like Louie’s. Each man asked the other if he was okay. Both knew that this was likely the last time they would talk, but if they wished to say good-bye, neither had the chance. There was shuffling in the corridor as a guard took up his station. Louie and Phil said nothing else.

  Louie looked down at his body. Legs that had sprung through a 4:12 mile over bright sand on that last morning on Kualoa were now useless. The vibrant, generous body that he had trained with such vigilance had shrunken until only the bones remained, draped in yellow skin, crawling with parasites.

  All I see, he thought, is a dead body breathing.

  Louie dissolved into hard, racking weeping. He muffled his sobs so the guard wouldn’t hear him.

  * Several days later, a catastrophic typhoon, almost certainly the same storm, plowed into the coast of China, collapsing homes, uprooting telephone poles, and causing extensive flooding.

  Eighteen

  A Dead Body Breathing

  SOMETHING FLEW THROUGH THE WINDOW IN THE DOOR of Louie’s cell and struck the floor, breaking into white bits. It was two pieces of hardtack, the dry biscuit that was the standard fare of sailors. A tiny cup of tea—so weak that it was little more than hot water, so small that it constituted a single swallow—was set on the sill. Phil received food also, but no water. He and Louie crawled about their cells, picking up slivers of biscuit and putting them into their mouths. A guard stood outside.

  There was a rustle outside Louie’s cell, and a face appeared. The man greeted Louie cheerfully, in English, by name. Louie stared up at him.

  The man was a Kwajalein native, and he explained that the American castaways were the talk of the island. A sports fanatic, he had recognized Louie’s name, which Louie had given to his captors. Prattling about track, football, and the Olympics, he paused only rarely to ask Louie questions. Once Louie got one or two words off, the native bounded back into his narrative.

  After a few minutes, the native glanced at his watch and said he had to leave. Louie asked him what had happened to the marines whose names were carved into the wall. In the same chipper tone, the native replied that the marines were dead. All of the POWs held on that island, he said, were executed.

  As the native walked out, the guard looked challengingly at Louie, lifted a flattened hand to his throat, and made a slashing gesture. He pointed to the names on the wall, then to Louie.

  That night, Louie rested his head next to the door, trying to get as far as possible from the waste hole. He had only just settled there when the door swung open and the guard grabbed him and spun him around, pushing his head against the hole. Louie resisted, but the guard became angry. Louie gave up and lay as the guard ordered. He could see that the guard wanted him to lie in this position so he could see him through the window in the door. Every few minutes, all night long, the guard peered in, making sure that Louie didn’t move.

  ——

  The morning of the second day began. Phil and Louie lay in sweltering silence, thinking that at any moment they’d be dragged out and beheaded. The guards stalked back and forth, snarling at the captives and drawing the sides of their hands across their necks with sadistic smiles.

  For Louie, the digestive miseries continued. His diarrhea became explosive, and cramps doubled him over. He lay under a blanket of flies and mosquitoes, keeping his buttocks over the waste hole for as long as he could, until the guard snapped at him to move his face back to the hole.
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br />   The day passed. Three times, a single wad of rice, a little bigger than a golf ball, sailed through the door window and broke against the floor. Once or twice, a swallow of tea in a cup was left on the sill, and Louie sucked it down. Night came.

  Another day came and went, then another. The heat was smothering. Lice hopped over the captives’ skin. Mosquitoes preyed on them in swarms so thick that when Louie snapped his fingers into a fist, then opened his hand, his entire palm was crimson. His diarrhea worsened, becoming bloody. Each day, Louie cried out for a doctor. One day, a doctor came. He leaned into the cell, looked at Louie, chuckled, and walked away.

  Curled up on the gravelly floor, both men felt as if their bones were wearing through their skin. Louie begged for a blanket to sit on, but was ignored. He passed the time trying to strengthen his legs, pulling himself upright and standing for a minute or two while holding the wall, then sinking down. He missed the raft.

  Two sips of water a day weren’t nearly enough to replace Louie’s torrential fluid loss. His thirst became worse than anything he’d known on the raft. He crawled to the door and pleaded for water. The guard left, then returned with a cup. Louie, grateful, drew close to the door to take a drink. The guard threw scalding water in his face. Louie was so dehydrated that he couldn’t help but keep begging. At least four more times, the response was the same, leaving Louie’s face speckled with blisters. Louie knew that dehydration might kill him, and part of him hoped it would.

  One day, as he lay in misery, Louie heard singing. The voices he had heard over the raft had come to him again. He looked around his cell, but the singers weren’t there. Only their music was with him. He let it wash over him, finding in it a reason to hope. Eventually, the song faded away, but silently, in his mind, Louie sang it over and over to himself. He prayed intensely, ardently, hour after hour.