The shadow of a frail man fell onto the upstage floor as he sat, holding a book titled “Unbroken.” His wide smile and big eyes contradicted the story he was about to tell, but he began the tale at his happiest and highest point while the dark truth loomed backstage.

 Louis Zamperini answered questions from interviewer Aubrey Fuller during the Page & Palette event held at Battleship Parkway, but mostly, he told it his way.

 He began by tossing the audience a glance at the real Louis. He said he was the son of Italian immigrants living in Torrance, Ca. and that he’d always been a fast runner—and he knew this because he used to “steal alcohol from bootleggers.”

 Though a spirited young man, he’d stumbled upon an undeniable talent. He began running races at Torrance High School and qualified for the Olympic team at 19 years old—the youngest qualifier for the 5,000-meter race.

 Zamperini finished in eighth place, but held high hopes for the 1940 Tokyo Olympics where experience and even further training might pay off. He even tucked away memorable experiences of a handshake from Hitler and a short flag-pole climb for a genuine swastika flag.

 But the 1940 Olympic Games were cancelled due to the outbreak of  WWII, and Zamperini’s dreams of a real Olympic souvenir, along with it.

 Louie’s running career had ended and his Air Force one began. Normalcy, joy, nutrition and basic human freedom would wash away like the ocean tide as he plummeted from an exploding plane, into the enemy waters below.

  “I felt like someone hit me on the forehead with a sledge hammer,” he recalled. “The world stood still for a moment.”

 His salvation was a lifeboat—he floated in the central Pacific Ocean with two other men and waited on starvation or enemy fire while hoping for rescue. He kept up spirits by telling stories of old Italian recipes while the three men sat nearly starving and thirsting to death.

 From sharks below the raft to machine guns above it, Zamperini survived for 47 days, only to become a prisoner of war under one of the most notorious Japanese leaders of the entire war: Matsuhiro Watanabe, also known as The Bird.

 And 2,000 miles later, he arrived on the sands of the Marshall Islands where he caught a glimpse of what he’d become, he said.

  “I’m just a skeleton, that’s all, and it brought tears to my eyes,” he spoke with a distance growing in his voice.

 Already starving, his new home lended rice bowls thrown in dirt, and constant pain and humiliation at the hands of the sadistic Bird. He recalled that nine Marines were beheaded in front of the POWs and that Watanabe “took great joy in telling us we were going to be executed.”

 “Beatings and kicking were just unavoidable,” he said with a downward glance. “The pain was O.K., but it was the humiliation and just stripping me of my dignity.”

 He remembered Japan slowly starving to death in late 1945, so the POWs were barely given scraps of food. They were used as guinea pigs for drug testing, he said.

 His family waited for him in Long Beach, Ca. where his mother refused to believe that her son was dead. In 1945, he was rescued and reunited with his family—a mere fraction of the man he once was.

 He gradually began building his body and mind  back and he married Cynthia Applewhite in 1947.

 Zamperini suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and alcoholism until his wife brought him to Billy Graham and salvation. He became an inspirational speaker, even returning to Japan in 1950 to visit war criminals and bring a message of forgiveness.

 The Bird hid for seven years in the mountains, and was never caught or punished for his atrocious actions during WWII.

 Through love, salvation and renewed hope, Zamperini’s wounds healed. He was given another chance to run in the Olympics, but this time, in 1988, he carried the Olympic torch for one kilometer during the Winter Games of Nagano, Japan.

 “When I leave here today, believe me I will look back and never forget,” he said of the powerful healing powers of his experience. “It was the most emotional race of my life.”

 He even left the Battleship audience with a bit of advice from all his experiences.

 “It’s very important to learn all you can about survival,” he began.

 “When you get into a situation that doesn’t comply with it, you’re still resourceful.”

 And once those present understood the man who sat before them, Zamperini spoke about the autobiography, “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillinbrand.

 “She’s pretty sharp,” he said of Hillinbrand with a smile. “That was the  perfect title because that was my life.”