Unbroken

At 4:30 am the next day, the Green Hornet was declared missing, and the rescue effort began. On the life raft, the men woke up the next morning to discover that Mac had eaten all of the survival chocolate. A B-25 flew over them, but the pilot did not see the life raft though Louie fired a flare and used a water marker. The men also realized that they were floating west, which meant they were traveling away from friendly planes and toward enemy ones. On day 3, the Daisy Mae flew directly over the life raft. Louie shot four flares, but the crew on the plane did not see them. On day 5, Mac displayed signs of severe psychological distress; Louie had to strike him in order to silence him. When the men ran out of potable water, Louie uttered a prayer for the first time since his youth.

Hillenbrand then shifts the narration to the perspective of the lives of the families of the three men. On June 4th, Phil’s and Louie’s families received telegrams that reported their disappearance.

Thirst and hunger are the focus of this chapter. Louie, Phil, and Mac were able to collect a small amount of rainwater with a modified air pump. Food arrived when an albatross landed on the Louie’s head. By raising his arm slowly, Louie was able to catch the bird and snap its neck; the meat, however, was inedible. Rather than eat the bird, they used the meat for bait. After a few fruitless attempts, while sharks bit their lines, the men caught a pilot fish. Although the men had never eaten raw fish before, they were so famished that they devoured it.

Louie and Phil knew to worry about more than dehydration or starvation; they had heard survival stories of other men lost at sea who died because their psychological states were too weak to keep them alive; as such, “Louie was determined that no matter what happened to their bodies, their minds would stay under their control” (145). Louie quizzed the other men and they told each other stories and recited recipes. Phil sang church hymns. Mac did not participate in these activities, but Louie and Phil found healing power in these talks.

A second albatross landed on Louie’s head around the fourteenth day. This time the bird did not smell as bad as the first albatross, but the men still had to force themselves to eat it. Louie caught a few more fish, and the rain returned sporadically. Louie fashioned a type of “claw” mechanism with shorter strands of fishing line wrapped around several fingers that grabbed fish as they swam by the raft. At one point, the men had been without water for six days. Louie prayed, and it rained the next day. This process of supplication and answer happened two more times.

On the twenty-seventh day of their journey on the water, a Japanese bomber flew overhead. Louie shot two flares, coloring the sea water, without realizing it was an enemy plane. The bomber rained bullets on them. The men dove into the water to hide under the raft, and after the plane finished the pass, all three men climbed back into the raft. The bomber returned, and Phil and Mac knew they would not be able to climb back into the boat if they dove in the water again. They stayed in the bottom of the boat, while Louie jumped into the water. He punched sharks repeatedly to defend himself from their jaws. The Japanese bomber strafed them with bullets a total of seven times; it even sent a bomb to the water on the last pass. The bomb did not explode, and not one of the men were hit by a single bullet.

Another threat to the men’s lives were sharks; they often jumped up to try and pull the men overboard. Louie managed to patch the bullet holes in one raft, but the other raft was completely damaged so all three men were now trapped on a two-man lifeboat.

The men calculated their distance and figured that they might reach the Marshall Islands, which were controlled by the Japanese, in three weeks.

Although Mac was losing his hope, he fought sharks off by beating them with an oar when they tried to attack Louie. This life-saving action enabled Mac to “[reclaim] himself” (161). The incident made Louie feel angry toward the sharks, and he devised a plan to kill a shark. The men managed to catch two sharks and ate their livers, and after the meal, “for the first time since breakfast on May 27th, they were all full” (162). On the thirtieth day at sea, a great white shark taunted them by swimming around the boat and sending waves of cold water overboard while slapping his tail on the side of the raft. The shark eventually gave up and disappeared. Three days later, on day thirty-three at sea, Mac died. Louie and Phil wrapped his body in a portion of the ruined raft and gently slid his body into the water.

After so many days of suffering from starvation and exposure, Phil and Louie entered into the “doldrums.” An especially still morning inspired the two men to ponder the scene around them: “Such beauty, [Louie] thought, was too perfect to have come about by mere chance” (166). Though the men felt they were dying a slow death, Louie felt that day was a deliberate “gift,” intended just for him and Phil.

Day forty arrived, and Louie heard a beautiful choir singing; Phil did not hear the song. After the men drifted for several more days, they spotted an island to the west. At this point, they had been adrift on the life raft for forty-six days.

The men knew that the islands in their sights were either the Marshall Islands or the Gilbert Islands; both were occupied by the enemy. A storm was swelling above them, so they decided to row lightly around the series of islands, hoping maybe to land on one that was uninhabited. The storm broke on the night they planned to slip onto shore.

They were found by a Japanese boat and taken on board. Immediately, they were given a biscuit and some water. A Japanese officer said in English, “These are American fliers...Treat them gently” (172). After being weighed, it was clear that the men had lost about half of their body weight. They were given a big meal. While speaking with the Japanese officers, the men learned that they had drifted for 2000 miles. The enemy made Louie and Phil as comfortable as possible, but after two days in the infirmary, they were to be transferred to Kwajalein, or “Execution Island.” The officer said to Louie and Phil: “After you leave here...we cannot guarantee your life” (173). When they arrived to Kwajalein, Phil and Louie were thrown into separate cells, and Louie sobbed.