Not Louie, TW's dog?

frankj1 wrote:

Louis Silvie Zamperini (January 26, 1917 – July 2, 2014) was an American World War II veteran, a Christian evangelist and an Olympic distance runner. He took up running in high school and qualified for the US in the 5,000 m race for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In 1941, he was commissioned into the United States Army Air Forces as a lieutenant. He served as a bombardier in B-24 Liberators in the Pacific. On a search and rescue mission, mechanical difficulties forced Zamperini's plane to crash in the ocean. After drifting at sea for 47 days, he landed on the Japanese occupied Marshall Islands and was captured. He was taken to a prison camp in Japan where he was tortured. Following the war he initially struggled to overcome his ordeal.

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

By Laura Hillenbrand

"Louie’s life, with its athletic feats, air combat, plane crash, shark attack, strafing, years as a POW, and slavery, is truly singular. But as unique and dramatic as it is, his story offers lessons that can guide those of us who lead much more ordinary lives. It stands as a testament to the breadth of the realm of possibility, demonstrating that with perseverance, courage, and resourcefulness we can prevail over hardships we imagined were insurmountable. And it demonstrates both the corrosive, life-consuming nature of bitterness and the transcendent liberation and peace that are the gifts of forgiveness. An odyssey of exceptional hardship, pain, trial, and triumph, Louie’s life is like no other, yet it carries lessons that speak to all of us. He is truly an inspiration.”

This is a quote from the author that says it all.

Gene363 wrote:

Great book! =d>

Palama wrote:

The Coastwatchers is the story of the unsung heroic civilian spotters of World War 2 who roamed the coastlines of their home islands and reported back enemy sightings to Allied Intelligence. Author Eric Feldt led Operation Ferdinand, part of the build-up to the Normandy landings, in which the Coastwatchers, by this time on the US Navy's payroll, played a critical role. His intimate knowledge of Ferdinand, and his familiarity with the Coastwatchers of the Pacific islands, provides a unique perspective on this little known but important chapter of military history.

Devotion tells the inspirational story of the U.S. Navy’s most famous aviator duo, Lieutenant Tom Hudner and Ensign Jesse Brown, and the Marines they fought to defend. A white New Englander from the country-club scene, Tom passed up Harvard to fly fighters for his country. An African American sharecropper’s son from Mississippi, Jesse became the navy’s first black carrier pilot, defending a nation that wouldn’t even serve him in a bar.

Celtic’s mind.

Whew!!! Not good...

izonfire wrote:

I'm still reading a Connecticut Yankee in king Arthur's court... Been picking it up when I hit the river and soak bait.... One of my favorites of all time...

opelmanta1900 wrote:

Harm’s Way is a thrilling novel of naval fortitude and survival in the combat for the Pacific Ocean. It culminates in a brilliant sea battle off the coast of the strategic island of Levu-Vana where the fate of the Pacific conflict hangs in the balance.

Writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother “forty whacks,” where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation—as well some lesser-known sites of murder that were no less ghastly.

Just finished
Spearhead by Adam Makos
An autobiographical account of an American tank gunner, his enemy, and a collision of lives in WWII

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
A third book on the 1996 Everest expedition in which 17 climbers lost their lives.

Currently reading
A Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman
A fictional story about Indian pot hunters (not MJ)

cacman wrote:

A book based on Steve Foster’s painstaking research into his father’s life as a POW and his escape.

In Northern Poland in 1940, at the Nazi war camp Stalag XX-A, two men struck up an unlikely friendship that was to lead to one of the most brazen and remarkable wartime escape stories ever told.

Antony Coulthard (nicknamed ‘The Professor’) was the privately educated son of wealthy parents with a first-class honours degree in modern languages from Oxford. The other man, Fred Foster, was the son of a bricklayer from Nottinghamshire who had left school aged 14.

Held in captivity, this seemingly mismatched pair would bond together and hatch a risky plan: they would perfect their German, forge travel documents, disguise themselves as travelling salesmen – and simply walk out of the camp.

Their journey would take them into the very heart of the Third Reich, stopping en route to sightsee and drink at a notorious Nazi watering hole.

‘It was a clever strategy, but a high-risk one. Success or failure would depend entirely on one thing: their ability to pass themselves off as native German speakers. The weight of this rested largely on Antony, whose fluency would be their passport to freedom. The serious challenge was to get Fred’s skills up to a level where he could just about pass muster during the time required. It would be, as Fred put it, “one big bluff”.’

What happened next is both heart-stopping and tragic.

"Little Eva" was a USAAF Consolidated B-24 Liberator which, returning from a bombing mission, got lost and crashed having exhausted its fuel supply on 2 December 1942 north-west of Burketown, Queensland (near the Gulf of Carpentaria).

The crew had taken to their parachutes before the crash. The survivors, now in two groups, set out on foot. Two of the crew travelled east and came across people after twelve days. The other party travelled westerly, with the only surviving member being found some five months later.

The aircraft, part of the 321st Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group based at Iron Range was returning with four other B-24s from a bombing raid on a Japanese troop convoy about 80 km north of Buna, Papua New Guinea. "Little Eva" lost touch with the other aircraft and returned to the base on its own. A severe thunderstorm disabled the radio, causing the flight to lose its way and run out of fuel. Lieutenant Norman Crosson, the pilot, gave orders to bail out. Most of the crew members parachuted to safety, however one was killed when his parachute snagged on the aircraft and another who did not jump was killed when the plane crashed at about 2:45am near the Burriejella waterhole.