Devil at My Heels: A World War II Hero's Epic Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness

Devil at My Heels: A World War II Hero's Epic Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness

by Louis Zamperini, David Rensin
Devil at My Heels: A World War II Hero's Epic Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness

Devil at My Heels: A World War II Hero's Epic Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness

by Louis Zamperini, David Rensin

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Overview

The bestselling autobiography of the legendary Louis Zamperini, hero of the blockbuster Unbroken.

A modern classic by an American legend, Devil at My Heels is the riveting and deeply personal memoir by U.S. Olympian, World War II bombardier, and POW survivor Louis Zamperini. His inspiring story of courage, resilience, and faith has captivated readers and audiences of Unbroken, now a major motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie. In Devil at My Heels, his official autobiography (co-written with longtime collaborator David Rensin), Zamperini shares his own first-hand account of extraordinary journey—hailed as “one of the most incredible American lives of the past century” (People).

A youthful troublemaker, a world-class NCAA miler, a 1936 Olympian, a WWII bombardier: Louis Zamperini had a fuller life than most. But on May 27, 1943, it all changed in an instant when his B-24 crashed into the Pacific Ocean, leaving Louis and two other survivors drifting on a raft for forty-seven days and two thousand miles, waiting in vain to be rescued. And the worst was yet to come when they finally reached land, only to be captured by the Japanese. Louis spent the next two years as a prisoner of war—tortured and humiliated, routinely beaten, starved and forced into slave labor—while the Army Air Corps declared him dead and sent official condolences to his family. On his return home, memories of the war haunted him nearly destroyed his marriage until a spiritual rebirth transformed him and led him to dedicate the rest of his long and happy life to helping at-risk youth. 

Told in Zamperini’s own voice, Devil at My Heels is an unforgettable memoir from one of the greatest of the “Greatest Generation,” a living document about the brutality of war, the tenacity of the human spirit, and the power of faith.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061972768
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 10/06/2009
Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
Format: eBook
Pages: 336
Sales rank: 494,555
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

A son of Italian immigrants, Louis Zamperini (1917-2014) was a U.S. Olympic runner, World War II bombardier, and POW survivor. After the war, he returned to the United States to found the Victory Boys Camp for at-risk youth and became an inspirational speaker. Zamperini's story was told in his 2003 autobiography Devil at My Heels, as well as in Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 biography Unbroken.


David Rensin worked closely with Louis Zamperini for many years and cowrote Devil at My Heels, as well as fifteen other books, including five New York Times bestsellers.

Read an Excerpt

Devil at My Heels

Chapter OneThat Tough Kid Down the Street

I've always been called Lucky Louie.

It's no mystery why. As a kid I made more than my share of trouble for my parents and the neighborhood, and mostly got away with it. At fifteen I turned my life around and became a championship runner; a few years later I went to the 1936 Olympics and at college was twice NCAA mile champion record holder that stood for years. In World War II my bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean on, ironically, a rescue mission. I went missing and everyone thought I was dead. Instead, I drifted two thousand miles for forty-seven days on a raft, and after the Japanese rescued/captured me I endured more than two years of torture and humiliation, facing death more times than I care to remember. Somehow I made it home, and people called me a hero. I don't know why. To me, heroes are guys with missing arms or legs — or lives — and the families they've left behind. All I did in the war was survive. My trouble reconciling the reality with the perception is partly why I slid into anger and alcoholism and almost lost my wife, family, and friends before I hit bottom, looked up — literally and figuratively — and found faith instead. A year later I returned to Japan, confronted my prison guards, now in a prison of their own, and forgave even the most sadistic. Back at home, I started an outreach camp program for boys as wayward as I had once been, or worse, and I began to tell my story to anyone who would listen. I have never ceased to be amazed at the response. My mission then was the same as it is now: to inspire and help people by leading alife of good example, quiet strength, and perpetual influence.

I've always been called Lucky Louie. It's no mystery why.


I was born in Olean, New York, on January 26, 1917, the second of four children. My father, Anthony Zamperini, came from Verona, Italy. He grew up on beautiful Lake Garda, where as a youngster he did some landscaping for Admiral Dewey. My dad looked a little bit like Burt Lancaster, not as tall but built like a boxer. His parents died when he was thirteen, and soon after that he came to America and got a job working in the coal mines. At first he used a pick and shovel and breathed the black dust. Then he drove the big electric flatcars that towed coal out of the mines. He worked hard all his life, always had a job, always made money. But he wanted more, so he bought a set of books and educated himself in electrical engineering.

Anthony Zamperini wasn't what you'd call a big intellect, but he was wise, and that's more important. His wisdom sustained us.

My mother, Louise, was half-Austrian, half-Italian, and born in Pennsylvania. A handsome woman, of medium height and build, Mom was full of life, and a good storyteller. She liked to reminisce about the old days when my big brother, Pete, my little sisters, Virginia and Sylvia, and I were young. Of course, most mothers do. Her favorite stories — or maybe they were just so numerous — were about all the times I escaped serious injury or worse.

She'd begin with how, when I was two and Pete was four, we both came down with double pneumonia. The doctor in Olean (in upper-central New York State) told my parents, "You have to get your kids out of this cold climate to where the weather is warmer. Go to California so they don't die." We didn't have much money, but my parents did not deliberate. My uncle Nick already lived in San Pedro, south of Los Angeles, and my parents decided to travel west.

At Grand Central Station my mother walked Pete and me along the platform and onto the train. But five minutes after rolling out, she couldn't find me anywhere. She searched all the cars and then did it again. Frantic, she demanded the conductor back up to New York, and she wouldn't take no for an answer. That's where they found me: waiting on the platform, saying in Italian, "I knew you'd come back. I knew you'd come back."


MORE STORIES SHE loved:

When we first moved to California we lived in Long Beach, but our house caught fire in the middle of the night. My dad grabbed me and Pete and whisked us out to the front lawn, where my mother waited. "There's Pete," she said, as my dad tried to catch his breath. "But where's Louie?"

My dad pointed. "There's Louie."

"No! That's a pillow."

My dad rushed back into the burning house. His eyes and lungs filled with smoke, and he had to crawl on his knees to see and breathe. But he couldn't find me — until he heard me choking. He crept into my room and spotted a hand sticking out from under the bed. Clutching me to his chest, he ran for the front door. While he was crossing the porch, the wood collapsed in flames and burned his legs, but he kept going and we were safe.

That wouldn't be the last of my narrow escapes.

When I was three, my mother took me to the world's largest saltwater pool, in Redondo Beach. She sat in the water, on the steps in the shallow end, chatting with a couple of lady friends while holding my hand so I couldn't wander off. As she talked, I managed to sink. She turned and saw only bubbles on the surface. It took a while to work the water out of me.

A few months later a slightly older kid in the neighborhood challenged me to a race. I lived on a street with a T-shaped intersection, and the idea was to run to the corner ...

Devil at My Heels. Copyright © by Louis Zamperini. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Interviews

An Interview with Lou Zamperini

Barnes &Noble.com: Lou, your book relates your ordeal as a Japanese POW during WWII. Who was "the devil" nipping at your heels when you finally came home at the end of the war?

Lou Zamperini: It was "The Bird" [Zamperini's chief tormentor, Sgt. Matsaharu Watanabe]. My hatred for him consumed -- and almost destroyed -- my life, until one night in 1949 when I let go of that hatred with the help of the Reverend Billy Graham.

And I haven't had a nightmare since! Forgiveness is a self-survival thing. When you hate, you don¹t live long.

B&N.com: What strengths and insights are in this new edition of Devil at My Heels that were not in the original 1956 book?

LZ: Finding my wartime diary, in a box in my mother's basement, has given great strength to this edition. I didn't have my diary when I wrote the first book. It has allowed me to accurately recall my correspondence with our counterintelligence people, my testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes trials, and my conversations with Jimmy Sasaki [Zamperini's former classmate at the University of Southern California who turned up as his chief interrogator at one POW camp] in Sugamo prison. He had always been an enigma to me. I also got confirmation recently that Jimmy was a spy when I knew him at USC, and I mention that in this new edition.

B&N.com: What have been the biggest highlights for you lately?

LZ: First, the 1997 phone call from the producer at CBS News. That paved the way for CBS's spending a year doing a documentary about my story, which was shown in 1998 as a one-hour special on 48 Hours as part of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. That documentary is shown in schools all over the country. Seeing CBS track down and interview "The Bird" answered a lot of questions for me. I almost got to meet him again myself, but it didn't happen. Participating in the Winter Olympics as a torch bearer was certainly a highlight. Nagano was right near the POW camp at Naoetsu, and it felt good to go back there with such an honor.

B&N.com: What is your biggest source of satisfaction, now that you are in your ninth decade?

LZ: The beautiful letters I get, especially from kids, telling me how they forgave their worst enemy after seeing my story. And my volunteer work. Volunteers live longer than other people. Doing something that makes you feel good increases your T-cells. The war took ten years off my life, and I'm busy getting them back. I still ski double-diamond runs; I chop wood for my cabin; I stand up straight. And I'm at peace.

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