Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption Read Online Free PDF

he wasn’t going to make it. Though he was getting faster by the day, he couldn’t force his body to improve quickly enough to catch his older rivals by summer. He was simply too young. He was heartbroken.
    ——
    In May, Louie was leafing through a newspaper when he saw a story on the Compton Open, a prestigious track meet to be held at the Los Angeles Coliseum on May 22. The headliner in the 5,000 meters—three miles and 188 yards—was Norman Bright, a twenty-six-year-old schoolteacher. Bright had set the American two-mile record in 1935 and was America’s second-fastest 5,000-meter man, behind the legendary Don Lash, Indiana University’s twenty-three-year-old record-smashing machine. America would send three 5,000-meter men to Berlin, and Lash and Bright were considered locks. Pete urged Louie to enter the Compton Open and try his legs at a longer distance. “If you stay with Norman Bright,” he told Louie, “you make the Olympic team.”
    The idea was a stretch. The mile was four laps of the track; the 5,000 was more than twelve, what Louie would describe as a “fifteen-minute torture chamber,” wel over three times his optimal distance. He had only twice raced beyond a mile, and the 5,000, like the mile, was dominated by much older men. He had only two weeks to train for Compton and, with the Olympic trials in July, two months to become America’s youngest elite 5,000-meter man.
    But he had nothing to lose. He trained so hard that he rubbed the skin right off one of his toes, leaving his sock bloody.
    The race, contested before ten thousand fans, was a barn burner. Louie and Bright took off together, leaving the field far behind. Each time one took the lead, the other would gun past him again and the crowd would roar. They turned into the homestretch for the last time dead together, Bright inside, Louie outside. Ahead, a runner named John Casey was on the verge of being lapped. Officials waved at Casey, who tried to yield, but Bright and Louie came to him before he could get out of the way. Bright squeezed through on the inside, but Louie had to shift right to go around Casey. Confused, Casey veered farther right, carrying Louie out. Louie sped up to go around him, but Casey sped up also, carrying Louie most of the way toward the grandstand. Final y, Louie took a half step to cut inside, lost his balance, and dropped one hand to the ground. Bright now had an advantage that looked, to Pete’s eye, to be several yards. Louie took off after him, gaining rapidly. With the crowd on its feet and screaming, Louie caught Bright at the tape. He was a beat too late: Bright won by a glimmer. He and Louie had clipped out the fastest 5,000 run in America in 1936. Louie’s Olympic dream was on again.
    On June 13, Louie made quick work of another Olympic 5,000 qualifier, but the toe injured in training opened up again. He was too lame to train for his final qualifying race, and it cost him. Bright beat Louie by four yards, but Louie wasn’t disgraced, clocking the third-fastest 5,000 run in America since 1931. He was invited to the final of the Olympic trials.
    ——
    On the night of July 3, 1936, the residents of Torrance gathered to see Louie off to New York. They presented him with a wal et bulging with traveling money, a train ticket, new clothes, a shaving kit, and a suitcase emblazoned with the words TORRANCE TORNADO. Fearing that the suitcase made him look brash, Louie carried it out of view and covered the nickname with adhesive tape, then boarded his train. According to his diary, he spent the journey introducing himself to every pretty girl he saw, including a total of five between Chicago and Ohio.
    When the train doors slid open in New York, Louie felt as if he were walking into an inferno. It was the hottest summer on record in America, and New York was one of the hardest-hit cities. In 1936, air-conditioning was a rarity, found only in a few theaters and department stores, so escape was nearly impossible.