Devil at My Heels: The Story of Louis Zamperini (5 page)

At night we stayed on our own deck, unless invited topside, as was Eleanor Holm, a 1932 Olympic swimming champion and the world’s greatest backstroker. She’d met William Randolph Hearst, Jr., in first-class while working out, and they became friends. When the Olympic bigwigs saw her dancing with Hearst, they didn’t like it that she’d left the athletic group. Then they watched her drink champagne, and that did it. She might have been warned first; I don’t know. I think they just tied it all together and the next day Avery Brundage called her on the carpet and dismissed her from the team.

Brundage was famously strict on amateurism, yet he was a hypocrite. He’d condemn athletes for taking money here and there, but we all got a bit more than the amateur rules called for. Every dollar helped, especially during the Depression, but it still broke the rules. Let me put it this way: I’ve never met a world-class
amateur
athlete in the true sense of the word.

Look what happened to the great Jim Thorpe. He was a starving Indian who made twenty dollars playing professional baseball, so they stripped him of his medals as punishment and broke his heart. It was pathetic to see him treated like a condemned criminal. In fact, it was so ridiculous that about ten years ago they gave all the medals back to his family. I’d just broken the high school world’s record when he and I took a speaking trip together, sponsored by the Torrance Kiwanis, who were just trying to help Jim. I’d give a short talk on “High School Athletics Today.” He’d put on headdress feathers, perform, say a few words, and get ten dollars.

Almost everyone thought Eleanor Holm’s punishment far exceeded the crime. The older, more mature athletes protested and asked Brundage to let everyone vote on the matter. I thought that if Holm lost her place, then they should have thrown off 95 percent of the team for drinking beer. Brundage said no, he was the authority. Like a dictator with an iron fist he issued edicts and everybody had to listen. I don’t even think he let the other officials vote. Of course, Hearst
immediately hired Holm as a correspondent, so she went to the Olympics anyway. But she didn’t swim. Our loss.

I didn’t like any of it, but what was done was done. Besides, by the time we docked in Hamburg and took the train to Berlin, I had my own event to worry about.

T
he Olympic Village dazzled me. It was completely fenced in, and wild animals roamed the enclosure loose. The Finns had a special bathhouse where I could sit in the sauna and beat myself with eucalyptus leaves, then dive off the end of a pier into a lake covered with swans. The Germans built the quarters like hotel rooms, only without bathtubs because, as I’d read in the newspaper, Hitler was germ-phobic. He didn’t like the idea of sitting in his dirt and not being able to rinse off well, and he believed we should all follow his example. As a result the Olympians had to make do with showers and bottles of Odol disinfectant.

Hitler also wanted the grounds immaculate. When a couple of American athletes tossed banana peels and apple cores on the ground, the Germans ran right over and scooped them up. The city of Berlin was so clean it was almost antiseptic. No spittle on the curbs. No papers in the gutter. They even had men in white coats on every corner to sweep up after the horses, so there were no flies. Germany seemed like the most spotless place on earth. Of course, I know Hitler had to put on a big show. He had ulterior motives, and I make no excuses for him.

In the Olympic Village dining room, built as a giant semicircle two
or three stories high, every door led to a different country’s food. I tried them all, which was stupid, because I put on even more weight.

Though storm troopers—the tallest, most handsome blonds—always stood watch, the atmosphere was light, even jovial. When someone said, “Heil, Hitler!” we’d give him back the same, except we’d say “Heil, Adolf!” They’d laugh. Nobody got mad.

In 1936 we still thought of Hitler only as a dangerous clown.

I SETTLED IN
and prepared for the opening ceremony. On Saturday, August 1, 1936, athletes from every country lined up on the field. Our team dressed in white pants, navy blue coats, and straw hats; the girls wore little tams. The big event was thousands of carrier pigeons released into the sky—they shot up and circled the stadium—immediately followed by cannon fire, which scared the pigeons, and seconds later their droppings hit our straw hats and shoulders with a distinctive pitter-patter. I remained at stiff attention, grinning, thinking not about myself but about the poor girls who got it all through their hair.

TO QUALIFY FOR
the 5,000-meter event I ran one heat. I stayed in the pack until the end, when my sprint put me near the front, and I managed to make the cut. It wasn’t easy because I was seriously overweight.

In the finals we ran in bunches according to pace. I wanted to get to the inside curb as quickly as possible, and I got a good start, but the leaders—the great Finn runners—moved out quickly. After the first lap I realized the pace was a bit fast for me, considering my extra pounds. The Finns pulled away and I stayed with the second group, about fifty yards behind. A third tailed us by thirty yards.

By the last lap I was the only one in my group with any energy left. Pooped, breathing hard, and sweating, I still remembered my brother’s instructions: when I felt the most done-in was the time to exert myself.
Isn’t one minute of pain worth a lifetime of glory?
I opened
up and ran as fast as I could. My time for the final quarter mile: an unbelievable 56 seconds. I had no idea I could go that fast, especially at the end of such a long race. I finished with the lead group and placed eighth—the first American to hit the tape.

I wasn’t crazy about my overall performance, but I consoled myself by thinking it had been only a warm-up, a prelude to the 1940 Tokyo Olympics. There, in
my
event—the mile—I would show everyone what I could really do.

I showered and joined some teammates in the stands. We sat near Hitler’s cement box. Between us lay a buffer zone of officers such as Göring and Goebbels. They did not allow anyone to approach the führer, but if you could get your camera to one of the officers, he’d take a picture of Hitler for you. I gave my camera to Goebbels. He asked my event.

“The five thousand meters.”

“And what is your name?” he inquired.

“I didn’t win anything,” I said, “so it’s not that important.”

“No, Hitler wants to know the name of every athlete.”

“Okay. My name is Zamperini.” I gave him the camera and he took a picture.

When Goebbels came back he said, “Hitler wants to see you.” My mouth dropped open.

I walked over and shook his hand. He seemed friendly enough and said, through an interpreter, “Ah, you’re the boy with the fast finish.” Then I went back to my seat. Frankly, it wasn’t that big a deal. Even if Hitler had given me his wristwatch, it still wouldn’t have meant much. He was just another dictator. So what? Sure, he was an anti-Semite, and I certainly wasn’t, but I’m embarrassed to say that at the time I didn’t understand what that was all about. I’d just graduated from high school and was more concerned about myself than about governments and how the world worked, or didn’t.

LATER I HIT
the streets of Berlin with a friend from the team. We hiked everywhere, saw the sights. We wanted to find an
Automat,
where they served liters of beer. You could drink one and walk around
with a little boost. Maybe try something you normally wouldn’t. We also wanted souvenirs. I grabbed an ashtray from a
Tanz
bar—a dance hall and bar. I also copped a fan.

At the Reich Chancellery we stopped and stood across the street to take in the magnificent building. In front, two guards marched from the doorway in the middle to the corners, where each would do an about-face and goose-step back to the center. While we stared, a limousine pulled up and Hitler got out and went inside, accompanied by some officers.

Of all the possible souvenirs, I wanted a Nazi flag the most. I couldn’t get the beautiful ones, the long silk streamers that hung from the building tops, so I set my sights lower and spotted a banner maybe ten, fifteen feet up, on a pole stuck in the Chancellery’s perimeter wall. My mind went to work; thinking maybe I could get it when the guards weren’t looking, I watched them walk their circuit and timed how long it took. I figured I could be across the street and up and down the pole while they walked toward their respective corners, then gone before they swung again in my direction.

As soon as the guards turned I made my move, but when I got under the flag it was higher than I figured and I had some trouble getting up the pole. When the guards did their about-face, they saw me, and began to yell. I stretched, grabbed the flag, then dropped to the ground and ran. I heard a loud crack that sounded a lot like a rifle shot, and the words
“Halten sie! Halten sie!”
I didn’t need to understand German to figure it out.

I made the smart move: I stopped. The guards seized me and cuffed me a bit for good measure before they took a good look at my Olympic clothing and realized I was an American athlete. One guard spoke very halting English. He wanted to know why I’d torn down the flag. I told him my name and the truth: I wanted a souvenir to take home to America—and here I embellished a bit—“to always remind me of the wonderful time I had in Germany.”

He left me with the other guard, went into the building, and returned with an older, high-ranking officer, introduced as Fritz. I later learned it was General Werner von Fritsch, commander-in-chief of the German Army (whom they eventually executed for going
against Hitler’s policies). Von Fritsch said, “Why did you tear down the swastika?”

I repeated my explanation. It must have been the right answer. He presented me with the flag, “as a souvenir of your trip to Germany.”

I still have the flag today.

The story of my little adventure hit the press and quickly died. But a few years later, during World War II, our side resurrected it as part of the propaganda effort, and twisted it around into an event that never happened. I didn’t know they’d done it, but when I found out I understood: our government had to paint the enemy as black as possible.

Walter Winchell and Burgess Meredith told the story on radio. Instead of tearing the flag off the Chancellery wall…well, here it is, straight from a transcript of the show:

Another version had me ripping down the flag and running a lap with it.

Nice sentiments, but neither happened.

I’D HAVE LOVED
to win an Olympic medal but I was just as happy to have won a place on our team. The whole trip was high adventure. Who can put the euphoria into words? It’s the total experience: the competition, the parties, the other athletes who became friends, and later the inevitable nostalgia.

After the Games ended in mid-August we attended one celebration
after another. The Germans picked their most beautiful girls to wait on us; young, comely Fraüleins all. They treated us like kings. The night before the train ride to Hamburg our hosts threw a banquet at a luxurious country club. In the great dining room were long tables covered with delicacies. Again, the girls conscripted by Hitler to wait on our team were absolutely gorgeous, and apparently thrilled to serve us.

My friend from the flag-stealing incident and I told the two cutest gals that we wanted to see them after the banquet. Soon we were outside, hidden under the orange trees, necking. That’s all we did—honest. When it was time to go, our bus driver kept honking the horn but we couldn’t leave our beautiful companions. Then our teammates hollered and we had to break the clinch. The girls ran after us, crying, “Please take us to America!” I got a lot of good-natured grief from the team about that incident.

Next we had an exhibition track meet in Hamburg. To welcome the team they set up another huge dining room full of food. The bar had a big groove down the middle so they could slide glasses of beer right to you. Naturally, I gorged myself, until they announced it was time to get ready for the meet. The team thought the meet was the next day. What a dirty trick. Our distance runners refused to compete because they knew racing on a full stomach would kill them. Only the field-event guys went.

That was our farewell to Germany. The next day everyone boarded the SS
Roosevelt
for home, with a stop in England to compete in the British Empire Games.

THE ACCOMMODATIONS IN
London were atrocious. While the Olympic Committee stayed at the Grosvenor Hotel, we were bused out of town and billeted at some dreary-looking slum in the boondocks, with no opportunity to see London or have a social life. The stairs of these tall tenements were so narrow I had to carry my bag in front of me, up six flights. My room made me want to sleep on the street. I guess the others felt the same because when I went down again, everyone was outside and unhappy.

We took a quick vote and decided not to work out that day and to
boycott the Empire Games altogether. We’d simply sit on the curb and wait until the Olympic Committee came out to hear our grievances.

When Brundage arrived he stormed into the group and demanded we accept the accommodations we had. “We want to stay at the same hotel you’re at, the Grosvenor,” countered the older Olympians, speaking for the group. They argued, Brundage left, came back. We didn’t waver. Finally he agreed. He had to.

Later, just to spite the Committee, we ordered the most expensive French Champagne for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and charged it to our rooms.

MY TRAIN TRIP
from New York back to Torrance took about five days. I arrived in the evening. The new Torrance police chief, John Strohe, met me at the Los Angeles depot and drove me through the city, sirens screaming and red lights flashing. When we reached the outskirts of town I noticed a crowd in the street. I jumped out, thinking there’d been an accident.

The people lifted me onto a ton-and-a-half truck and put me on a sparkling white throne surrounded by several athletes in tracksuits. I sat there embarrassed, my face burning. I’d planned a quiet homecoming and had not even wired my parents until I’d reached Chicago.

Torrance Square was full when we arrived. The town’s fire engine drove around trailing streamers that read,
ZAMPERINI COMING HOME TONIGHT
. Loudspeakers blared, “Welcome home, Louie.” It was simply overwhelming.

I had always shied away from public displays of affection, but the townspeople had me cornered. I said a few words and sat down, waiting for my chance to sneak away. Then I spotted a crippled woman in her wheelchair, the stepmother of my best friend. She liked argyle socks and I’d remembered to buy her a pair in New York. I jumped off of the platform and gave her the gift and a big hug.

That began the celebration. The reception was amazing. I even managed a laugh when Chief Strohe said, “After I chased Louie up and down every back alley in Torrance, he had to be in shape for
something
.” He was right. If Torrance’s only police car went south, I’d
head north. I wondered how many of Torrance’s citizens knew how close I’d once come to being little more than a no-account delinquent.

THAT SUMMER, EVEN
before the Olympics, a number of colleges had tried to recruit me. I spent a week at Stanford with Clyde Jeffrey, a sprinter. They gave me a convertible to drive and we stuck around for a few days, checking out the campus. Notre Dame offered me a scholarship and when I turned it down I told Coach Nicholson to give it to a mediocre runner named Greg Rice. I’d beat him by fifty yards in the mile. Afterward, I’d told Greg, “You’re not a miler—you’re a two-miler.” He got my scholarship, switched to the longer race, and broke the world’s record.