A gripping true story of human endurance & the resilience of one remarkable individual during WWII from Laura Hillenbrand (author of ' Seabiscuit'). On a May afternoon in 1943 a US bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean. After an agonising delay a young lieutenant finally bobbed to the surface & struggled aboard a life raft. So begins one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant's name was Louis Zamperini. As a boy he turned to petty crime until he discovered a remarkable talent for running which took him to the Berlin Olympics. But as war loomed he joined up & was soon embroiled in the ferocious battle for the Pacific. Now Zamperini faced a journey of thousands of miles of open ocean on a failing raft dogged by sharks starvation & the enemy. Driven to limits of endurance Zamperini's fate whether triumph or tragedy would depend on the strength of his will...