The Race He Finally Won

In the summer of 1936, a young American named Louis Zamperini finished the 5,000-meter race at the Berlin Olympics with such a blazing final lap that Adolf Hitler reportedly asked to meet him. But Zamperini's most important race had nothing to do with speed.

Seven years later, his B-24 bomber went down over the Pacific. He survived 47 days adrift at sea before Japanese forces captured him. For two years, a sadistic guard known as "the Bird" made it his personal mission to destroy Zamperini's spirit — and nearly succeeded. Zamperini came home a broken man, haunted by nightmares and rage.

Then, in 1949, he stumbled into a Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles and met the One who had been pursuing him all along. Something broke open. He surrendered not just his past, but his hatred.

He went back to Japan to look his former captors in the eye. One by one, he embraced them. The Bird refused — spent decades in hiding, denying who he was. But Zamperini walked away free.