10 Images

Louis Zamperini through the years

Louis Zamperini, from Laura Hillenbrand’s book “Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.” With a cracked rib and puncture wounds to both legs and one foot, Louie celebrates his record-setting NCAA Championship victory. (Louis Zamperini / Random House)

Louis Zamperini, right, in the NCAA track meet in Minneapolis beating Chuck Fenske of Wisconsin in 1938. (Associated Press)

Louis Zamperini, right, is welcomed home at Long Beach Airport by, left to right, Virginia, Sylvia and Louise. (Louis Zamperini / Random House)

Louis Zamperini, left, with Roy B. McKeown, vice president of Youth for Christ, in 1950 as Zamperini was waiting to board an aircraft for Japan, where he was going to do evangelistic work. ()

Louis Zamperini gets a hug from Millie Eller before speaking to the L.A. Breakfast Club on the eve of Veterans Day in 1999. Zamperini was a U.S. Olympic sprinter before World War II and became an Army Air Corps pilot. (Los Angeles Times)

Louis Zamperini, 85 when this photo was taken in 2002, runs with the Olympic torch at 27th Street and Western Avenue in Los Angeles. (Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times)

Louis Zamperini, 89 at the time this photo was taken in 2007, a former USC athlete and track-and-field Olympian, stands next to five Olympic torches he helped carry in five past Olympic games. Zamperini built the stand that holds the torches. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Former Olympians Louis Zamperini, left, and John Naber hold the Olympic torch from the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics in 2011. They were torchbearers in two Olympics and they passed this torch between them in 1984. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

With Seattle coach Pete Carroll, right, by his side, Olympian and World War II prisoner of war survivor Louis Zamperini speaks at the Winforever event at the Grammy Museum in 2012. (Susana Capra/ Capra Photography)

Louis Zamperini (played by Jack O’Connell) triumphs in a Torrance High School race in a scene from the movie “Unbroken.” (David James / Universal Pictures)