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Powerful bonds formed among prisoners. Some shared their meagre rations with desperately ill comrades or risked their lives to barter outside the camps. Ingenious prisoner doctors improvised medical equipment and drugs denied to them by the Japanese. But despite such efforts, British and Commonwealth prisoners in the Far East were seven times more likely to die than those captured in Europe.

Escape was almost impossible. Most camps were hundreds of miles from Allied-held territory. Prisoners were too under-nourished to be capable of surviving for long and Europeans in Asia could not easily pass unnoticed.

In August 1945, atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced the Japanese to surrender. However, with camps scattered throughout the Far East, it was impossible for Allied recovery teams to reach them all immediately.

For many, liberation came too late. Almost a quarter of all Allied prisoners in Japanese hands died during captivity.

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What Life Was Like For POWs In The Far East During The Second World War

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Japan's early successes in the Far East during the Second World War resulted in over 190,000 British and Commonwealth troops being taken prisoner. Conditions varied, but in the worst camps - such as those along the Thailand-Burma 'Death Railway' - prisoners suffered terribly.

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Who do you think was the best crew member?

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Hiroshima August 6, 1945

Times are in Tinian Time Unless Otherwise Noted, One Hour Ahead of Hiroshima

0245 Early morning on Tinian, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay and her crew of 12 lift off with the uranium bomb Little Boy aboard. The Enola Gay is accompanied by two observation aircraft, The Great Artiste and Necessary Evil.

0320 Little Boy is armed.

0730 Enola Gay Captain Paul Tibbets announces to the crew: "We are carrying the world's first atomic bomb".

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The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (U.S. National Park Service)

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Times are in Tinian Time Unless Otherwise Noted, One Hour Ahead of Hiroshima 0245 Early morning on Tinian, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay and her crew of 12 lift off with the uranium bomb Little Boy aboard. The Enola Gay is accompanied by two observation aircraft, The Great Artiste and Necessary Evil.

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The gun-like design of the Little Boy bomb was effectively the last of its kind

smithsonianmag.com

For many scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, the race to build an atomic bomb was a grim battle between life and death. There was no denying the technology's destructive force or its inevitable civilian toll. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place 70 years ago this week, scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer famously recalled his feelings upon hearing the news, quoting from a Hindu text: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

But in the grip of World War II, with German scientists furtively working on the same technology, Oppenheimer and other physicists in the U.S. were keenly focused on the task of creating the world's first nuclear weapon. And within the secret confines of Los Alamos National Laboratory, an internal battle was raging between two groups with opposing ideas for how to deliver the deadly payload.

Ultimately, two types of bomb using different radioactive materials fell on Japan just days apart, codenamed Little Boy and Fat Man. But if scientists had succeeded in their first attempts, both bombs could have been named Thin Man.

The nucleus of an atom is a more variable place than you might imagine. At its heart, an atom contains a mix of particles called protons and neutrons, which combine to give the atom its mass and its unique elemental personality. While all atoms of a given chemical element have the same number of protons, the neutron count can vary, yielding isotopes of different masses. But like an overcrowded raft, some isotopes teeter on the edge of stability and are prone to spontaneously tossing out excess energy and particles in the form of radiation. Over time, radioactive isotopes naturally decay into more stable configurations and even into new elements in a fairly predictable chain of events.

Harnessing the atom to create an explosion didn't seem realistic until 1939, when scientists in Berlin managed to deliberately split a uranium atom into lighter elements. Induced in the right way, this process of nuclear fission can release enormous amounts of energy-according to initial reports by The New York Times, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima exploded with the force of 20,000 tons of TNT, although that estimate has since been downgraded to 15,000 tons.

In a 1939 letter to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, Albert Einstein warned of the fission experiment and Nazi efforts to build a weapon. Soon after, scientists showed just how much uranium would be needed to achieve critical mass and detonate a fission bomb, and they proved that they could also use plutonium for the task. By 1941, the Manhattan Project had joined the race to develop a working atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer at first placed his faith in a design codenamed Thin Man, a long, skinny gun-type bomb. It would fire a plug of radioactive material at a target made of the same stuff, so that the combined forces of compression and increased mass triggered the chain reaction that would lead to a fission explosion. As a hedge, another team was investigating an implosion bomb, which would compress a subcritical mass of material in a core surrounded by explosives. When the charges went off, the ball of material would get squeezed from the size of a grapefruit to that of a tennis ball, reaching critical mass and detonating the bomb.

The implosion design was elegant but the physics were less certain, which is why the gun model took priority. After about four months, though, project scientists realized that the Thin Man was not going to work with their desired fuel source, the radioactive isotope plutonium-139. The Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State was built in 1943 with the express purpose of pumping out weapons-grade plutonium, and it turned out that material from its reactors had a fatal flaw.

"The plutonium Thin Man design had to be abandoned because of high risk of pre-detonation," says Barton Hacker, a military technology historian at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. That's not as scary as it sounds-it simply means that the plug and the target would lose their destructive power before the bomb could actually go off. "Available plutonium emitted too many neutrons, setting off a nuclear reaction before critical mass could be attained, resulting in what the physicists called a fizzle."

The neutron emission from uranium was low enough to let a gun-type reach critical mass, but the supply was severely limited. "Plutonium could be produced more quickly than weapons-grade uranium," says Hacker. "The gun design was sure to work, but there wasn't enough uranium for more than one in 1945."

The Little Boy bomb that fell on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was the offspring of the Thin Man, a shorter gun-type bomb that carried a uranium payload. Meanwhile, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9 was an implosion device, the plutonium-powered Fat Man. Its design was about ten times more efficient and generated a greater explosive force, equal to about 21,000 tons of TNT, according to modern estimates. Although the Little Boy bomb was less efficient and less powerful, it destroyed more of the area around Hiroshima because the hilly terrain around Nagasaki restricted Fat Man's blast radius. Still, in the wake of the bombings, implosion became the primary design for nuclear weaponry into the Cold War era.

"To the best of my knowledge, the only gun-type design ever detonated after Hiroshima was one of a nuclear artillery shell tested in Nevada in 1953," says Hacker. "All the rest were implosion designs. Gun-type designs were reliable but inefficient, using more nuclear material for the same results as implosion devices. They remained in the stockpile as artillery shells, but no others were detonated."

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How Physics Drove the Design of the Atomic Bombs Dropped on Japan

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smithsonianmag.com For many scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, the race to build an atomic bomb was a grim battle between life and death. There was no denying the technology's destructive force or its inevitable civilian toll. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place 70 years ago this week, scientific director J.

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Konoe Fumimaro (born October 12, 1891, Tokyo, Japan-died December 16, 1945, Tokyo) political leader and prime minister of Japan (1937-39, 1940-41), who tried unsuccessfully to restrict the power of the military and to keep Japan's war with China from widening into a world conflict.

Early life

Konoe was born to the foremost of the five families from among which regents ( sesshō) and chancellors ( kampaku) were chosen. His father, Atsumaro, was a prominent statesman. Konoe was an intelligent and sensitive child, but he tended to be nervous and timid; and he developed a cynical attitude toward society. He was educated with the intellectual elite of the nation, first attending Tokyo Imperial University and then Kyōto Imperial University, from which, during Japan's participation in World War I, he graduated in law.

As a student Konoe became intimate with Western philosophy, literature, sociology, and social and economic problems, particularly the problems of the poor. One of his major advisers at Kyōto University later became one of Japan's leading Marxist economists. During this period, Konoe translated into Japanese Oscar Wilde's essay "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891), which was published in an intellectual journal. Its sale was prohibited by the government because it was judged dangerous to the public order.

Political career

Unlike most politicians in Japan before World War II, Konoe did not begin his political career either through civil-service examination or through membership in a political party. Instead, he entered ( c.1920) under the tutelage of the genrō (elder statesman) Saionji Kimmochi, a perceptive advocate of parliamentary government and a member of the court aristocracy.

After the war Konoe was an attendant of the Japanese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. At this time he wrote an article rejecting the Anglo-American principle of pacifism as a convenient cover for maintaining the status quo by nations which, unlike Japan, already possessed extensive spheres of influence. He also vigorously criticized as impractical the principle of an international league as a means of abolishing economic imperialism and racial prejudice.

Konoe entered the upper house of the Diet by virtue of his rank as prince. He advocated reform of that house and of the peerage system, opposed fascism, and called for reform of the army general staff to prevent army interference in foreign affairs. His goal was the expansion of parliamentary politics. From the outbreak of war with China in Manchuria (1931), Konoe felt that a complete political renovation of the Japanese militaristic power structure, carried out by political leaders, was required in order to realize the nation's destiny. After serving as vice president of the upper house, Konoe was appointed president in 1933.

Prime minister

Konoe declined to form a cabinet in 1936, when on Saionji's recommendation, the emperor asked him to do so. But in June 1937 he agreed to form a nonparty cabinet, which he hoped would gain the support of the nation. He decided to adopt the most reasonable of the army's demands while controlling its more reckless elements. He declared that he sought to realize social and international righteousness and to alleviate internal friction and discord.

In July Chinese and Japanese forces clashed near Beijing, and the two countries soon were engaged in full-scale, although undeclared, war. Konoe made various unsuccessful efforts to end the conflict, and in January 1939 his cabinet fell. He was appointed head of the Privy Council and was given a cabinet post in the Hiranuma Kiichirō cabinet.

Konoe's first cabinet had been plagued by the separation of state affairs and the army's right of supreme command. He believed that to restrain the army and to settle the war required a government based on political power derived from a national organization. In June 1940 he resigned as head of the Privy Council, planning to develop such a mass national movement, but, before his plans were fully developed, he was persuaded to form his second cabinet. His plan for a mass, popular organization was finally realized later that year with the formation of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei Yokusan-kai).

That September Japan concluded a military alliance-the Tripartite Pact-with Germany and Italy. Meanwhile, amid steadily deteriorating relations with Great Britain and the United States, Konoe tried to prevent a widening of the Sino-Japanese conflict and thus avert American participation; in April 1941 he concluded a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union.

Faced with a further deterioration of Japanese-U.S. relations and a U.S. encirclement of Japan, Konoe concluded that a solution to the Sino-Japanese conflict could be reached only through American mediation. Thus, from April 1941, he devoted all his energy to Japanese-U.S. negotiations, hoping to enter into discussions with the U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. In July the third Konoe cabinet was formed in order to eliminate the foreign minister, Matsuoka Yōsuke, who opposed these negotiations. But in October Konoe resigned over differences with the army minister, Tōjō Hideki.

With the widening of the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Konoe came under military surveillance and was forced to leave the centre of politics. In 1944 he cooperated with other leading political figures to bring about the collapse of the Tōjō cabinet. After the war, in 1945, he became deputy minister of national affairs in the Higashikuni cabinet. Later that year he was served with an arrest warrant by the occupation army on suspicion of being a war criminal, and on December 16, the day he was to report, he committed suicide by drinking poison.
Shigeru Hayashi

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Konoe Fumimaro | Japanese Prime Minister & WW2 Leader

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Konoe Fumimaro political leader and prime minister of Japan (1937-39, 1940-41), who tried unsuccessfully to restrict the power of the military and to keep Japan's war with China from widening into a world conflict. Konoe was born to the foremost of the five families from among which regents

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Mutsuhiro Watanabe was so deranged as a prison guard that General Douglas MacArthur named him as one of the most wanted war criminals in Japan.

Angelina Jolie's blockbuster incited some outrage in Japan after its release in 2014. The film, which portrayed the trials suffered by the former Olympian Louis Zamperini in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, was accused of being racist and of over-exaggerating the brutality of the Japanese prison. Unfortunately, the film's main antagonist was one of the rare cases where the truth needed no exaggeration to shock the public.

Nicknamed "The Bird," Mutsuhiro Watanabe was born into a very wealthy Japanese family. He and his five siblings got everything they wanted and spent their childhood being waited on by servants. Watanabe studied French literature in college and, being a fervent patriot, immediately signed up to join the army after his graduation.

Because of his life of privilege, he thought he would be automatically granted the esteemed position of an officer when he enlisted. However, his family's money meant nothing to the army and he was granted the rank of a corporal.

In a culture so deeply rooted in honor, Watanabe saw this humiliation as a total disgrace. According to those closest to him, this left him completely unhinged. Having been focused on becoming an officer, he moved to his new position at the Omori prison camp in a bitter and vengeful state of mind.

It took no time at all for Watanabe's vicious reputation to spread throughout the entire country. Omori quickly became known as the "punishment camp," where unruly POWs from other camps were sent to have the fight beaten out of them.

One of the men who suffered in Omori alongside Zamperini was British solider Tom Henling Wade, who in a 2014 interview recalled how Watanabe "took pride in his sadism and would become so carried away with his attacks that saliva would bubble around his mouth."

Wade recounted several brutal incidents in the camp, including one when Watanabe made Zamperini pick up a beam of wood over six feet long and hold it up above his head, which the former Olympian managed to do for an astounding 37 minutes.

Wade himself was punched in the face repeatedly by the sadistic guard for a minor infraction of camp rules. Mutsuhiro Watanabe also used a four-foot kendo sword like a baseball bat and bashed Wade's skull with 40 repeated blows.

Watanabe's punishments were especially cruel because they were psychological and emotional, not just physical. In addition to horrendous beatings, he'd destroy photographs of POW's family members and force them to watch as he burned their letters from home, often the only personal belongings these tortured men had.

Sometimes midway between beatings he'd stop and apologize to the prisoner, only to then beat the man into unconsciousness. Other times, he'd wake them in the middle of the night and bring them to his room to feed them sweets, discuss literature, or sing. This kept the men constantly on edge and wore down their nerves as they never knew what would set him off and send him into another violent rage.

After Japan's surrender, Watanabe went into hiding. Many former prisoners, including Wade, gave evidence of Watanabe's actions to the War Crimes Commission. General Douglas MacArthur even listed him as number 23 out of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan.

The Allies were never able to find any trace of the former prison guard. He had so thoroughly disappeared that even his own mother thought he was dead. However, once the charges against him were dropped, he eventually came out of hiding and started a successful new career as an insurance salesman.

Nearly 50 years later at the 1998 Olympics, Zamperini returned to the country where he had suffered so greatly.

The former athlete (who had become a Christian evangelist) wanted to meet and forgive his former tormentor, but Watanabe refused. He remained unrepentant about his actions during World War II until his death in 2003.

Enjoy learning about Mutsuhiro Watanabe? Next, read about Unit 731, World War II Japan's sickening human experiments program, and learn the dark secret of America's World War 2 German death camps. Then, discover the true story of The Pianist.

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He Was One Of Japan's Most Ruthless Guards During World War 2 - And He Got Away With Everything

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During World War 2, Japan's Mutsuhiro Watanabe was known as a sadistic prison guard who made POW's lives a living hell. Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini was one of the POWs, and his life was forever changed the day he met the man known as "the bird."

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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption is a 2010 non-fiction book by Laura Hillenbrand. Unbroken is a biography of World War II veteran Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific Theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war (POW) in three Japanese POW camps.

Unbroken spent more than four years on The New York Times best seller list, including 14 weeks at number one. It is the 5th longest-running nonfiction best seller of all time.[non-primary source needed ]

Inspired by the story Come on SeaBiscuit in childhood, as an adult Hillenbrand wrote Seabiscuit: An American Legend (2001). While researching that novel, Hillenbrand came across a 1938 newspaper article about Louis Zamperini. The discovery led Hillenbrand to tell the story of Louis Zamperini's experience as a prisoner of war (POW) during World War II. "Unbroken" (2010) became a New York Times Bestseller[citation needed ] and formed the basis for a feature film.

Louis Zamperini grows up in a Christian home. In his youth he is a troublemaker in his hometown of Torrance, California. Louis steals and stashes food, liquor, and cigarettes. Louis is also bullied for his Italian background.

Louis is caught by law enforcement and returned to his family. Although his father disciplines him with beatings, Louis' behavior does not improve.

Louis is led to pursue running by his older brother, Pete. Pete rides a bicycle alongside Louis as he runs home from school, ringing the bike bell as encouragement. This positive reinforcement changes Louis.

Louis joins his high school track team, begins to win races, and becomes known as the Torrance Tornado. Training at a college track facility, Louis becomes acquainted with James Sasaki, a man he presumes to be Japanese-American.

Louis earns a place on the U.S. Olympic Team to compete at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Pete walks Louis to the train station for his departure to Germany. At the station Louis says that this first Olympic Games will just be a "try-out" for the next Olympics 4 years later in Tokyo, Japan. Pete tells Louis to never forget that "a moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory".

At the Olympics, Louis participates in the opening ceremonies as the Olympic Torch is lit, and notices a Japanese contestant who politely nods at him. Competing in the 5,000 meter race against more experienced athletes, Louis first seems to fall behind. As the second lap bell rings, Louis remembers Pete's words and rallies to place 8th with a time of 14 minutes, 46.8 seconds.

Louis' running career ends abruptly as World War II begins. Louis enlists in the United States Army Air Corps where he becomes a bombardier. He is assigned to the Pacific theater to a squadron based in the Hawaiian Islands. Louis and his crew grow close during this time.

When Louis' plane, the Super-Man, bombs a Japanese target, it is hit over five hundred times. Despite failed brakes, the crew is able to crash land at their air field. All but one of the crew survive the ordeal.

As he awaits his next mission, Louis continues to train, trying to beat his own record. His crew's aircraft is replaced with a less reliable plane, the Green Hornet. While Louis' crew understands that the Green Hornet is an unreliable plane, his superiors insist that it is flight worthy.

When his crew is assigned a search mission, Louis observes that their mission involves "a lot of ocean". The Green Hornet crashes due to mechanical difficulties 850 miles (1,370 km) south of Oahu, killing eight of the 11 men aboard.

The survivors, Louis, Phil, and Mac, are wounded and face a grave future. Phil becomes seriously depressed. Mac goes through various mental breakdowns and eats all the chocolate rations.

The survivors also become creative, devising ways to obtain fresh water and food. After the first day at sea, they attempt to signal a plane with no luck. The men are able to capture an albatross. When they attempt to eat it, they become ill. Instead, they use the meat of the bird for fish bait. When they catch and eat a fish raw, Phil remarks that the Japanese eat their fish raw.

Aware of past records for survival at sea, the survivors carefully track the passage of time. Phil recalls that another air crew that was stranded at sea for 24 days. To pass time and maintain sanity, Louis talks about his mother's cooking.

By Day 18, Louis and Phil both seriously question their unfortunate fate. During a terrible storm, Louis prays, promising God that he will dedicate his life to Him.

On their 28th day at sea, the survivors signal a plane. The enemy plane makes two strafing runs, damaging both life rafts. Louis and Phil manage to repair a life raft. Mac dies soon after.

Louie and Phil survive 46 days at sea and are captured by the Japanese. They are first taken to what is a small base camp, given an insufficient meal, and subjected to interrogation.

After a few days, both men are made to strip. Their guards hose them down and shave their hair in preparation for transfer to POW camps. Phil and Louis are separated. Placed on a bus blindfolded, Louis speaks to another POW named Tinker, Louis asks "Is this Tokyo, I've always wanted to go to Tokyo". Tinker replies "Be careful what you wish for".

At the POW camp, a camp leader nicknamed "The Bird" introduces himself to the new arrivals. The Bird states that the POWs are enemies of Japan and shall be treated accordingly. Louis glances at the Bird who then orders Louis to look at him but beats Louis whenever he does so.

In their barracks, the other POWs recognizes the wounds on Louis as the work of the Bird. The POWs explain that the nickname "The Bird" refers to their tormentor's way of constantly watching and listening.

During one of their morning "trainings", the Bird calls out Louis as an Olympic athlete and forces him to race against one of the camp guards. When the weakened Louis loses, he is beaten and called a failure in order to demoralize him.

In a talk with a senior POW, Louis expresses that he would rather be killed than watch others be tortured. The reply is that "the only way to beat them would be to make it out alive".

Japanese officers tell Louis that everyone in America thinks he is dead. Louis is offered a deal: in return for speaking on the radio to announce that he is alive and well, Louis could spend a day outside the camp. During this time Louis recognizes one of the Japanese officers as none other than James Sasaki, an acquaintance during training as a track athlete at a college in the USA.

After Louis goes through with the initial broadcast, the Japanese offer him an opportunity to take part in propaganda broadcasts in exchange for a more comfortable life outside of the camp. Louis experiences profound discomfort at the sight of other clean and well-dressed American personnel taking part in this kind of collaboration with the Japanese.

When Louis declines, he is sent back to the camp. The Bird sets out to punish Louis. One punishment involves other prisoners punching Louis in the face.

When the camp comes under attack, the prisoners are moved to a coal production facility and told to work or be killed. Louis spends weeks at the camp, but when he rests briefly, he is taken away to be punished.

The Bird orders Louis to hold a large beam over his head under threat of death. Louis endures for 37 minutes and stares down the Bird until the Bird snaps and severely beats Louis.

As the war comes to an end, the camp guards scatter and American planes drop food and other supplies to the POWs. Eventually, Louis returns to the United States. Upon his return to the United States, Louis kisses the ground.

Louis is reunited with his family. He meets Cynthia Applewhite; they marry after knowing each other for two months. They have a daughter. However, traumatized by his wartime ordeal, without a career, and unable to pursue his love of running, Louis becomes an alcoholic. Cynthia seeks a divorce.

When evangelist Billy Graham comes to town, Cynthia convinces Louis to attend a revival meeting. There Louis recalls his bargain while lost at sea and the bargain that he made with God. Louis is inspired to turn his life around, which saves his marriage.

Over time, Louis forgives all who wronged him during WWII. Louis returns to Japan where he locates and makes peace with many of his former tormentors. When the Bird refuses to meet him, Louis sends him a letter to express his forgiveness.

Louis takes part in the torch relay for the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano. As a gesture of reconciliation and resilience, Louis carries the torch past one of the locations where he was once imprisoned.

Louis Zamperini: Olympic middle distance runner (1936) who becomes a POW during World War II.

Pete Zamperini: Louis Zamperini's older brother, his role model and first running coach.

Louise Zamperini: Louis' mother, who refuses to give up on Louis for dead.

Anthony Zamperini: Louis' father, depicted as a disciplinarian.

Sylvia Zamperini: One of Louis' two sisters.

Virginia Zamperini: One of Louis' two sisters.

Glenn Cunningham: An athlete who serves as one of Louis' biggest role models.

James Kunichi Sasaki: Sasaki is a Japanese man who becomes friends with Louis in the United States long before his POW capture. Dasani reappears at the Ofuna camp, as a head interrogator.

Russell Allen Phillips: Russell / "Phil", a survivor of the Green Hornet crash alongside Louis and one of Louis' best friends. Initially they were both imprisoned at Ofuna but Phil was relocated. He survives the war and marries.

Francis McNamara: Francis / "Mac", the third survivor of the crash of the Green Hornet, buried at sea.

Gaga: Gaga was a pet duck of the Ofuna POWs killed by the guards.

The Quack: An unnamed Japanese officer who beats Bill Harris for creating a map of the camp and a Japanese-English dictionary.

William Harris: William / Bill, one of the first people Louis meets at Ofuna camp, known for his photographic memory and language skills.

Mutsuhiro Watanabe: known as "The Bird", a sadistic guard at Ofuna, intent on breaking Louis down.

Cynthia Applewhite Zamperini: Louis' wife, who meets Louis in Miami Beach after the war and marries him against the wishes of her parents after two months. Cynthia leads Louis to seek spiritual guidance when he succumbs to alcoholism.

Billy Graham: the evangelist who inspires Louis' post-war spiritual reawakening that lifts him out of alcoholism and despair.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption was officially published on November 16, 2010 by Random House Publishing Group. Soon after its publication, the book was praised on the New York Times Bestseller list and remained on the list for a consecutive 160 weeks; To this day the book has sold well over 4 million copies.

A feature film based on the book was adapted by Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures. Angelina Jolie directed this film while the Coen brothers, Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson wrote the screenplay. Jack O'Connell portrays Louis Zamperini and the film had its general release on Christmas 2014 to mixed reviews but was a box office success.

A subsequent movie, Unbroken: Path to Redemption was made as a sequel in 2018 to this first movie, to less success than the first one.

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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption is a 2010 non-fiction book by Laura Hillenbrand. Unbroken is a biography of World War II veteran Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific Theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war (POW) in three Japanese POW camps.

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Mutsuhiro Watanabe ( Japanese: 渡邊睦裕, 18 January 1918 - April 2003) - nicknamed " the Bird" by his prisoners - was a known war criminal and Imperial Japanese Army soldier in World War II, who served in a number of military internment camps. After Japan's defeat, the US Occupation authorities classified Watanabe as a war criminal for his mistreatment of prisoners of war (POWs), but he managed to evade arrest and was never tried in court.

Watanabe served at POW camps in Omori, Naoetsu (present day Jōetsu), Niigata, Mitsushima (present day Hiraoka) and at the Civilian POW Camp at Yamakita.

While in the military, Watanabe allegedly ordered one man who reported to him to be punched in the face every night for three weeks, and practiced judo on an appendectomy patient. One of his prisoners was American track star and Olympian Louis Zamperini. Zamperini reported that Watanabe beat his prisoners often, causing them serious injuries. It is said Watanabe made one officer sit in a shack, wearing only a fundoshi undergarment, for four days in winter, and that he tied a sixty-five-year-old prisoner to a tree for days. According to Hillenbrand's book, Watanabe had studied French, in which he was fluent, and had interest in the French school of nihilist philosophy which holds that life and human existence hold no objective meaning.

In 1945, General Douglas MacArthur included Watanabe as number 23 on his list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan.

However, Watanabe went into hiding and was never prosecuted. In 1952, all charges were dropped. In 1956, the Japanese literary magazine Bungeishunjū published an interview with Watanabe, titled "I do not want to be judged by America." He later became an insurance salesman, and grew wealthy.

Prior to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, the CBS News program interviewed Watanabe at the Hotel Okura Tokyo as part of a feature on Louis Zamperini who, four days before his 81st birthday, was returning to carry the Olympic Flame torch through Naoetsu en route to Nagano, not far from the POW camp where he had been held. In the interview, Watanabe acknowledged beating and kicking prisoners, but was unrepentant, saying, "I treated the prisoners strictly as enemies of Japan." Zamperini attempted to meet with his chief and most brutal tormentor, but Watanabe, who had evaded prosecution as a war criminal, refused to see him.

Watanabe died in April 2003.

Accounts of Watanabe's abusive behavior are given in Laura Hillenbrand's book about Zamperini titled Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010). Watanabe also appears in Dr. Alfred A. Weinstein's memoir, Barbed Wire Surgeon, published in 1948.

In 2014, Japanese musician Miyavi played Watanabe in Angelina Jolie's , the film adaptation of Hillenbrand's book. David Sakurai portrays Watanabe in Harold Cronk's Unbroken: Path to Redemption, a " spiritual successor" to Jolie's film, released in 2018.

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Mutsuhiro Watanabe ( Japanese: 渡邊睦裕, 18 January 1918 - April 2003) - nicknamed " the Bird" by his prisoners - was a known war criminal and Imperial Japanese Army soldier in World War II, who served in a number of military internment camps.

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B-24D (Louis Zamperini) Super Man, April 1943

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United States Army Air Force B-24D Liberator 'Super Man' Louis Zamperini enlisted in the USAAF in September 1941 and earned a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was deployed to the Pacific island of Funafuti as a bombardier on B-24D 'Super Man'.