Exhibition of Archival Documents Supporting Unbroken

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National Archives Meets Hollywood: Shares Records Behind UNBROKEN!

Free screening, document display, and article highlight National Archives’ connection

Washington, DC

Special free screening of UNBROKEN
Tuesday, February 10, at 7 PM, William G. McGowan Theater

Major Japanese newspapers and commentators such as the Yomiuri Shimbun identify Unbroken as a "novel" and think the movie will heighten anti-Japanese sentiment. This view is part of rightwing campaign in Japan to re-interpret the war and depict its victims as liars. The National Archives will open an exhibit to take on this denier history on February 5th.

Join the National Archives in downtown Washington for a free screening of the film UNBROKEN (2014; 137 minutes; trailer), based on the 2010 book by Laura Hillenbrand, UNBROKEN: A World War II Story of Survival Resilience and Redemption. The film, a World War II action drama, was produced and directed by Angelina Jolie and stars Jack O'Connell, Takamasa Ishihara, and Domhnall Gleeson. Presented in partnership with NBCUniversal and in conjunction with the UNBROKEN Featured Document display, February 5 through March 4, 2015.

Register online or call 202-357-6814. Theater doors will open 45 minutes prior to start time. Walk-ins without reservations will be admitted 15 minutes prior to start time, depending on available seats. Attendees should use the Special Event entrance on Constitution Avenue and 7th Street, NW.

UNBROKEN Featured Document Display*
February 5 through March 4, 2015, National Archives East Rotunda Gallery

The National Archives welcomes UNBROKEN with a special display of Olympian Louis "Louie" Zamperini’s wartime service records and his Purple Heart, which he gave to UNBROKEN author Laura Hillenbrand. The display is free and open to the public at the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC, on Constitution Avenue at 9th Street, NW.

On May 27, 1943, Army Air Force bombardier Louis “Louie” Zamperini’s B-24 airplane crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Louie survived 47 days at sea, only to be taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese. His fate unknown, Louie was declared dead a year and a day after his plane went down. His family received a condolence letter from President Franklin Roosevelt and a Purple Heart medal for “wounds that resulted in his death.” Against all odds, Zamperini survived and was liberated at the end of the war. The National Archives Museum’s “Featured Documents” exhibit is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation.

Display highlights include:

-Letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Zamperini Family after Louis was mistakenly declared deceased, May 28, 1944.* National Archives at St. Louis
-Certificate awarding the Purple Heart medal to Louis Silvie Zamperini after he was mistakenly declared deceased, October 12, 1944.* National Archives at St. Louis
-Purple Heart medal awarded to Louis Silvie Zamperini, ca. 1944. Courtesy of Laura Hillenbrand, author "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption," who received it as a gift from Louis Zamperini.

Online resources: Zamperini’s Paper Trail at the National Archives
The National Archives holds hundreds of millions of records created or received by the U.S. Government during World War II, including the original records of hero Louis Zamperini. See:
Air Crew Report on the disappearance of the Green Hornet, Zamperini's B-24 plane.
Smithsonian.com “Deep Dive” on the Air Crew Report that includes an interview with archivist Eric VanSlander.
National Archives blog post “Louis Zamperini: The Story of a True American Hero.”

The East Rotunda Gallery and William G. McGowan Theater are located in the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC. Metro accessible on Yellow or Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial station. To verify the date and times of the programs, call the National Archives Public Programs Line at: 202-357-5000, or view the Calendar of Events online.

* Please note: a July 12, 1973, fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO, destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF) of Army and Air Force service members, including Zamperini’s file. In reconstructing his service record, official copies of these original records were incorporated into Zamperini’s OMPF by the National Archives.

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Defending Women's Words

The Daily Telegraph in "Japan's nationalists attack Angelina Jolie war film" quoted my observation on these Japanese right-wing attacks on Louis Zamperini. The Rightists contend that he exaggerated the brutality of his experience as POW of Japan. They suggest his memoirs, like those of the Comfort Women, are fabricated and designed to embarrass Japan.

Astounded by this reaction, I tried to emphasize to the reporter the political realities in the United States involved in questioning the heroism of a World War II veteran. I said,

It is one thing to question the memories of illiterate women who were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military. It is quite another to question the memory of a white male Olympian who was a disciple of Billy Graham.

Many found the quote outrageous as implying a moral judgment that the suffering of the Comfort Women was somehow less important or less deserving of public attention than that of a white, male veteran. On reflection, I understand that perception, but I was really trying to make two different points. Let me explain.

First, I meant to point out the relative difficulties of uncovering the truth about the victims of Japan’s war crimes and how the Japanese right exploits these. So much depends on the victim’s personal story and their traumatic memory. Little documentation survived the ordered massive destruction of records held by Imperial Japan.

This challenge for historians is compounded by the fact that until very recently few cared about women’s accounts of their war experience. War was about men and their triumphs, struggles, and failures. Few records exist about the Comfort Women because no one at the time felt their existence significant enough to record. And they themselves generally could not write of their experiences. They became invisible by the silence.

Indeed, Japanese military ship manifests listed the trafficked Comfort Women merely as “logs” or “items.” And the American military did nothing to investigate why they found Comfort Women on the battlefield. They simply saw the women as a quaint Japanese “amenity.”

The Comfort Women have had to struggle to have their words believed. And they have had to wait until society understood what happened to them was wrong and that it was ok to discuss sexual violence. It was not until the 1970s that rape was recognized as about power not sex and that trauma recognized as creating deep psychological scars.

The racist and sexist ideologues of the Japanese right believe it is easy to question the memories of women who were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military. They play upon prejudices toward Koreans and old, embedded misogynist views of women. They feel safe that the former comfort women are poor and illiterate living on the fringes of society. Few, they reason, will defend them. 

They are mistaken.

Second, the Japanese right continues to believe that the Comfort Women cannot be heard and have no constituency. In this they are wrong. They are even more wrong to think that about the American POWs of Japan. Whereas the support groups for the Comfort Women had to be built, the ones for Mr. Zamperini already exist.

Veterans' organizations from the VFW to Rolling Thunder, current and past Olympians, conservative Christians, and University of Southern California alumni will all rally to protect his memory. Embedded in today’s America is a “thank you for your service” given to all veterans. Politically, both the veteran’s organizations and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association are large and powerful.

Denying the history of America’s WWII veterans is more difficult than doubting the words of abused, marginalized women. Neither denial is honorable or acceptable. But men documented their war in newspapers and books. The war crimes trials across the Pacific documented and focused on the maltreatment of male prisoners of war.

It is interesting to note that on the Rev Graham’s Association homepage is an advertisement for “After Unbroken: The Rest of the Louis Zamperini Story: Captured By Grace.” The movie, Unbroken, will be released on Christmas Day. The book Unbroken has been on the bestseller list, among the top ten, ever since it was released in 2010. A young reader’s edition is now available.

The Comfort Women denials have offended Americans. The denials of POW abuse will enrage Americans. But maybe that is what Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his supporters want.

For those interested in the history of the American POWs of Japan, I maintain another blog focused on this subject HERE.

Louis Zamperini Unbroken

On July 3rd, Louis Zamperini died. He had faced death many times as a young man. And defied the "odds" many more. As a POW of Japan he was beaten, starved, experimented upon, and dehumanized. It was with God's grace that he survived to be 97. You can sign the guest book HERE.

The video documentary is an excellent snapshot of Zamperini's life as portrayed in the still, after four years, best-seller Unbroken.

It is hoped that the movie will inspire the many, still-existing Japanese corporations that used and abused the POWs they requested from Imperial Japan's Army Ministry to finally acknowledge how they treated POWs and to offer an apology. Zamperini, like all POW slave laborers, was tormented by Japanese corporate employees as much as by Japanese soldiers.

In Japan, after a brutal interrogation at the infamous Naval Interrogation Center in Ofuna in Kamakura, Zamperini was sent to Tokyo Base Camp # 1 Omori. There he was a slave laborer for Nippon Express. In March 1945, Zamperini was sent north to Niigata to Tokyo-04-Branch Camp where he was a slave laborer for ShinEtsu Chemical and Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Corp. Naoetsu (NSSC, formerly Nippon Stainless). Although Bird was a military POW guard, his job was to ensure discipline among the POW laborers for the company and it is possible that he was paid by the company and not the government as many were. 

To date, no Japanese company has formally, officially acknowledged or offered an apology for their use and abuse of Allied POW slave labor. Two current Abe Cabinet members, ASO Taro (Finance) and HAYASHI Yoshimasa (Agriculture) have direct family ties and stock holdings in companies that used POW slave labor. 

At both the Omori and Naeotsu POW slave labor camps, Zamperini was singled out for special torture by Mutsuhiro Watanabe, know as "The Bird." In explicably, he followed Zamperini to Naeotsu. Although, both Japanese guards and POWs acknowledged that Watanabe as a cruel psychopath, no superior ever tried to stop him. As Watanabe observes, he was not given any military orders on how to treat the POWs. Yet, as you see below, Zamperini found it possible to forgive him. Watanabe refused to meet with Zamperini and felt it only natural to beat and kick POWs. In the interview above, Watanabe brushes off his cruelty as simply the judgement of Westerners.