Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

by Laura Hillenbrand

By one report, stories on Louie were such an important source of revenue to the Torrance Herald that the newspaper insured his legs for $50,000.

He’d soon find out. Shortly before the athletes came ashore at Hamburg, a doctor noted that quite a few were expanding. One javelin competitor had gained eight pounds in five days. Several wrestlers, boxers, and weightlifters had eaten themselves out of their weight classes, and some were unable to compete. Don Lash had gained ten pounds. Louie outdid them all, regaining all the weight that he’d lost in New York, and then some. When he got off the Manhattan, he weighed twelve pounds more than when he’d gotten on nine days earlier.

Louie took up skateboarding in his seventies.