Zamperini and Phillips remained adrift for another two weeks before being captured by the Japanese Navy near the Marshall Islands. By then, the men had drifted an astonishing 2, miles.
Former guards at the Ofuna prisoner of war camp in Japan bid farewell to liberated U. He endured daily torment as a prisoner of war.
After being held for some six weeks on the island of Kwajalein, Zamperini was shipped to the Japanese mainland and eventually confined to three different interrogation centers and POW camps. Over the next two years, he suffered from disease, exposure, starvation, and near-daily beatings from guards.
During stints at the Omori and Naoetsu prison camps, Mutsuhiro pummeled Zamperini with clubs, belts and fists and regularly threatened to kill him. On one occasion, he had Zamperini hold a heavy wooden beam above his head and threatened to shoot him if he dropped it; on another, he forced Zamperini and other American prisoners to punch each other until they were nearly all knocked unconscious. The Japanese tried to use him as a propaganda tool.
Guards at the Ofuna interrogation center forced a weak and starved Zamperini to run foot races against Japanese competitors and then beat him with clubs when he had the nerve to win. Later, Japanese officials at Radio Tokyo hauled him into their studio and tried to persuade him to read propaganda messages over the air.
Zamperini had been given up for dead back home, and the Japanese hoped to use him as a tool to lower American morale and paint the U. Zamperini agreed to read a message telling his parents he was alive, but despite warnings that he would be condemned to a punishment camp, he refused to cooperate any further. He reunited with his former captors after the war. Zamperini: He was a great leader. However, he was making boys register for the draft at the same time.
This was more than a year before we got into the war. Meroney: What do you think of the criticisms of President Harry Truman for using the atom bomb? Look at Chernobyl and what recently happened in Japan. In , I interviewed victims of Hiroshima. They all said the same thing: I feel honored. Because this happened to me, millions of lives were saved. Zamperini: I was interested in their opinion. Bombs were necessary. The Japanese still had thousands of kamikaze pilots near Tokyo. Besides that, the field marshals ordered all the heads of the prisoner of war camps to kill all the prisoners.
We would have been slaughtered. Also, Japanese leaders told the women and girls of Okinawa and Saipan, The Americans are going to take over and then rape and kill you. There were families jumping off of cliffs because of that.
Every woman and daughter in Japan was to be given an auger. They were told, When the Americans come, stab them. The bombs stopped all that.
They saved thousands of lives, and ended the war. We forget too easily. Zamperini: Oh, no. Zamperini: You can get a Purple Heart for scratch. The Japanese bombed us, and there were guys scratching and cutting themselves with glass and torn aluminum. Meroney: Having been an Olympian, what do you make of the doping scandals in sports? Zamperini: Drugs have always been around, but in my day no athlete would touch them because there was no money in sports.
Sports has turned into a business, and what a sickening thing that is. Meroney: The athletic department of USC, your alma mater, was scandalized because its star football player, Reggie Bush, allegedly accepted gifts as a student athlete. NCAA rules forbid that sort of thing. Zamperini: Glenn Cunningham. But he got back on his feet, started to walk, and then started to run a little.
He had the world record for running the mile. I ran against Glenn, my hero. Once, I saw him in the shower. Not only were his legs burned, he was burned clear up the middle of his back.
How that man ever walked or ran is beyond me. He was a real true hero to everybody. Bill was clean living. The average person should walk eight flights of stairs a day. I do at least that much, maybe double. Besides that, no matter what happens, if I have a cheerful countenance all the time, nothing gets me down. Meroney: You survived an airplane crash, lived on a life raft in the ocean for almost two months, and were beaten as a POW. What do your doctors say about you? Zamperini: I recently had a complete physical at the VA hospital and, as part of it, saw a psychiatrist.
What do you mean? Yet as Zamperini came closer to the four-minute mile, the United States came closer to war. There would be no Olympics in Zamperini was forced to forego running for a career in the military. He joined the Army Air Corps in November and was trained as a bombardier. Zamperini flew in Bs in the Pacific War Theater and went on a number of bombing raids.
In May , Zamperini went out on a mission to search for a missing plane when his plane had trouble of its own. Zamperini and the crew went down; eight men died on impact, three survived. They quickly ran out of food and drinkable water. They passed the time by telling stories and pretending to cook meals.
About thirty-three days into their survival, Mac passed away. The two surviving crew members faced typhoon sized waves, angry sharks, and were shot at by Japanese pilots. Their bullet-riddled raft, faded from the blistering sun, barely supported their emaciated bodies. Finally, on July 15, the two men were picked up by Japanese soldiers. To say they were saved would be inaccurate. Zamperini and Phillips were modestly nursed back to health before they were transferred to a prisoner of war camp.
The Japanese POW camps were notoriously cruel. Zamperini was separated from Phillips and transferred to a number of different camps throughout the war. Always on the brink of starvation, Zamperini was treated especially cruelly because of his running fame. Zamperini was forced to clean up the latrines, shovel coal, and was beaten relentlessly. Due to the harsh treatment, cold weather, and severe malnutrition, Zamperini developed beriberi, a deadly disease caused by vitamin deficiency.
He was on the brink of death. On August 6, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
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