On May 27, 1943, Louis Zamperini's B-24 crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Louis and two other survivors found a raft amid the wreckage and waited for rescue. Instead, they drifted two thousand miles for forty-seven days. Their only food: two shark livers and three raw albatross. Their only fresh water: sporadic rainfall.

On the forty-seventh day, close to death, Zamperini was captured by the Japanese. Thus began more than two years of torture and humiliation as a prisoner of war.

Zamperini survived and returned home a hero. The celebration was short-lived -- he plunged into drinking and the depths of rage and despair. It would take years, but with the love of his wife and the power of faith he was able to stop the nightmares that haunted him, overcome the drinking that imprisoned him, and lay to rest the ghosts of war.

A stirring memoir from one of the greatest of "the Greatest Generation," here is a living document about the brutality of war, the tenacity of the human spirit, and the power of forgiveness.