When the canteen water supply ran dry again, Louie began to doubt they'd survive. He thought back to when he first arrived in Hawaii and Eddie Rickenbacker and his crew had just been rescued from a record of twenty-one days drifting on rafts much like the one Louie was in. Louie was sure that twenty-one days on a life raft represented the outer limits of human survival.
As an Olympic runner, a bombardier in the Army Air Corps, and a prisoner of war, Louis Zamperini was determined to thrive and survive. Never backing down from a challenge, he lived a life of adventure while modeling hope and forgiveness to a generation.
A magnet for trouble as a boy, Louie determined to create a new path for himself. Nicknamed the "Torrance Tornado," he set national records and traveled to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. His resolve as a runner was matched by his will to survive a plane crash, weeks adrift at sea, and years in a prison camp. This American hero encouraged countless others to have faith and to persevere through trials, revealing that no life is beyond redemption.