A biography of Olympic runner and World War II bombardier, Louis Zamperini, who had been rambunctious in childhood before succeeding in track and eventually serving in the military, which led to a trial in which he was forced to find a way to survive in the open ocean after being shot down.

Dramatization of the life of Louis Zamperini, 5000-meter runner at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After his bomber crashed in the Pacific in 1943, he survived 47 days adrift in a small boat before being arrested by the Japanese and held in prisoner-of-war camps until the end of the war in 1945.