3
The 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:
The scene is Berlin, 1936. The American delegation is facing the reviewing stand where Chancellor Hitler and his official staff are giving the Nazi salute. Some of the boys are responding with the salute. Others are just standing there awkwardly. But…wait! One boy from the ranks has burst out to one of the poles and has snared the swastika flag, which he’s trampling on the ground! There’s a mild uproar! Oh, the führer will be very mad!
It was Lou Zamperini, Southern California distance runner, who was the first of the millions of American boys to show his contempt for Nazism.
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.
Coach Dean Cromwell of USC wanted me, too. He was a legend. His USC team had won more national championships than any other university in America. When you went to USC you could ask any athlete on the field, “In what event did you hold the world’s record in high school?” However, whenever anyone introduced Cromwell as “the world’s greatest track coach,” he wouldn’t stick out his chest. He’d simply say, “Well, I get the greatest athletes in the world. Why shouldn’t I be the world’s greatest track coach?”
Cromwell had been on the 1936 Olympic track-team coaching staff and had come to many, if not all, my high school track meets. He was known for his broad grin and the way he encouraged his and other athletes. His famous greeting was “Hi, champ.” Even though part of his job was to solicit and proselytize for his team, his praise made me feel important.
My brother, already one of the nation’s top milers, attended Compton College. Cromwell was smart and offered a scholarship to both of us.
I entered the University of Southern California in September 1936 and did well on the field. As a freshman I was invited to the big Princeton Invitational, where I won my first national title in the two-mile. Pete still coached me now and then but I listened less often, shrugging off his advice with a cocky and arrogant “Yeah, yeah. I know.” After all, I was the one who’d been in the Olympics. Clearly, my personality still needed help. Although on the oval, I ran to win and to support the team, off the oval I didn’t win any popularity contests. I was still mostly a loner, stubborn, with a low boiling point.
That winter, against Coach Cromwell’s advice, I decided to take up skiing. I figured it would develop my legs and lungs and could only help my running. But when I took off down a slope at Big Pines, I ran into ice on the slide, lost control, and landed in a heap. I tried to stand, but the pain in my leg and knee made me topple over again. The verdict: bad knee, torn ankle ligaments, crutches, no running for two months.
Pete gave me a hard time. “You’ve got a responsibility to the team and to the people who admire you. The kids. You’ve got to sacrifice to uphold the traditions of athletes.”
That made me angry. “If I can’t live a normal life and do what other people do then I don’t want to run,” I threatened sharply. Those words set the pattern of my life for the next few years. I wanted it all: the fame, new achievements—and all the distractions and fun college offered.
I’D NEVER REALLY set my heart on breaking any world record save for one: the National Collegiate Mile. Bill Bonthron of Princeton had aced my hero, Glenn Cunningham, by inches, and broken the record in 4:08:08. I planned to get the title back someday for Glenn—and for me.
I trained hard but not in the way Coach Cromwell approved of. In those days the coaches didn’t allow us to train by running uphill, something I’d done ever since the summer I decided to run everywhere I went. This meant no running up and down the stairways in the stands at the Coliseum. The doctors said it would damage the heart; in reality it did the heart good. And the legs. I didn’t listen. Every evening I’d climb the Coliseum fence and do the “agony run.” At the top my legs seared with fire, then I’d walk across a row, go down again, and up another staircase. I did that after each normal workout. Here’s why. People say all anyone needs is a positive attitude. It’s nice to have, but a positive attitude has nothing to do with winning. I often had a defeatist attitude before a race. What matters is what you do to your body. Self-esteem can’t win you a race if you’re not in shape.
IN JUNE 1938, healthy again and a sophomore, I traveled to Minneapolis for the NCAA meet. The USC team had won three years straight, but the competition this time was far more rugged. The morning of the meet Cromwell walked his thirty-four athletes half a mile from our hotel to a cafeteria for lunch, then across the street. He pointed at a large plate-glass window. “There’s the trophy,” he said, as we stared at the four-and-a-half-foot symbol of victory.
I thought we could win again, especially if I beat Chuck Fenske of Wisconsin, who’d won the mile race two years in a row. Everyone expected him to repeat. In fact, no one rated my chances better than fifth. Maybe the experts were right; no Pacific Coast runner had ever won that NCAA title. In fact, the West had never produced any great distance runners; the East controlled everything. I wanted the record badly, but despite Coach Cromwell’s motivational exercise, I could only taste the bitter pill of my own pessimism.
THE NIGHT BEFORE the race, as I lay in bed reading, I heard a knock at the hotel room door. Coach Nicholson of Notre Dame stood there. “Louie,” he said, “I’ve got something to tell you.” He motioned me outside. “I’m ashamed to say this, but I just came from an eastern coaches’ meeting and they’re going to tell their milers tomorrow to do anything they can to get you out of the race. Be aware of what’s going to happen, and try to protect yourself.”
The eastern coaches all disliked Dean Cromwell because the press kept calling him the world’s greatest track coach even though he’d never had a great distance runner. To them, the mile was the glamour race, not the 100 or 220 yards. The mile was magical. They didn’t want Cromwell to have a winner.
“Thanks, but don’t worry about me,” I told Coach Nicholson. “I can take care of myself.” Or at least act like I could. I went back to bed and didn’t give it a second thought. I’d never seen anyone do anything evil on the track. My competitors had always been gentlemen. Of course, they’d all been from the West.
THE NEXT MORNING my roommates and I went to see The Count of Monte Cristo, with Robert Donat. Being Italian, I loved it; the count got revenge on everybody. My adrenaline pumped and flowed. After the movie we took a taxi to the hotel, had a light lunch, and went to the track. Over the loudspeaker I heard the announcer call the names of the three or four fellows they thought would win the race. One at a time they jogged back and forth in front of the stands.
No one mentioned me.
THE GUN SOUNDED and we took off. As usual, I didn’t try to take the lead, but I felt great, like I would never get tired. I thought about what Coach Nicholson had said about the East Coast runners. I figured he meant they’d try to box me in and keep me from making my move.
Soon I was boxed in, but I quickly realized they had other tactics in mind when I suddenly felt a searing pain in my leg. The runner ahead of me had reached back with his foot and caught me in the shin with razor-sharp spikes, making three gashes a quarter inch deep and an inch and a half long. I’d been nicked before; that happens when you run in crowds. In fact, every runner gets chased by dogs when he trains. If you want the dog to leave you alone, you extend your back leg six inches and nick his snout.
This felt different.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I yelled. “Cut that out!”
He did it again. My socks began to fill with blood.
I had to get out of the box. I pulled my elbows close to my body, in good racing form, and tried to slide between two runners. But they set their elbows at a ninety-degree angle and caught me in the ribs—a favorite trick of predominantly indoor runners. I later discovered a hairline fracture, but at the time it just knocked the wind out of me.
The race seemed to drag by slowly, and I fought frustration for three laps. Then the leader made his move. The other runners, thinking he’d win easily, relaxed and the box opened a bit and I squeezed through. Apparently they’d forgotten my finishing sprint. I caught the leader and passed him easily. Safely out in front, I glided a bit for last ten yards because I was so mad that they’d run such a slow race.
When it was all over, Coach Cromwell asked how fast I thought I ran. Famous for being able to time my laps within a second, I said, “I’m lucky if I broke four-twenty.”
“Then you’re lucky,” he said, “You ran 4:08.3 and broke the National Collegiate record. What’s more, you’re not even breathing hard. You could have run anything. Even four flat.”
A four-minute mile? The impossible dream? But suddenly it didn’t feel so impossible.
If I have any regrets about that race it’s that had I been able to follow through on my plan to really open up the last half mile, I might have broken four flat that day. I’d felt that good.
When the doctor patched me up I had three gashes on my shins, a spike hole through my foot, and both my socks had turned red. The newsreels show me afterward, wrapped in big bandages. People wrote letters, asking, “We don’t understand it—why were your legs taped?” Even my future wife, who was probably twelve at the time, told me years later that she and her mother had gone to a theater to see Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood and had also watched me in a newsreel with both legs bandaged.
In the end I was just glad to win. I got the record back for Glenn Cunningham and me.
THAT NIGHT I should have rested for next race and let my legs heal, but a big local politician lent seven of us his Cadillac, and his son as driver. We bought the kid a movie ticket and took off on our own with the car. We picked up three girls at our hotel, had a few beers, and didn’t get to bed until 3 A.M. A week later in the Big Ten meet at Evanston, I lost to Fenske by five yards.
After that, although I won some races and lost others—and defended my NCAA mile title in 1939 with an easy victory in 4:13.6—my attitude was never the same.
AFTER YEARS OF strict training, I just wanted to relax and play a bit. I spent a lot of time with Harry Read, a college friend and fraternity brother. An unexcitable fellow who had no particular objectives, Harry impressed me because he was always so calm and even-keeled. He had all the money he wanted, as well as a new car and a twenty-four-foot yawl named Romancia. Harry could trace his American ancestry back several generations, which just stoked my deeply rooted sense of inferiority and insecurity. But Harry never pressed his advantage.
Harry considered track a waste of time. In turn, I couldn’t understand his addiction to sailing. He did get me down to the marina one day, and after drinking beer, scraping, and sandpapering, he took me out on the bay. The trip was pleasant enough but no big deal.
We did have one big interest in common: neither of us was a scholar, and we agreed that our immediate mission in life was to do whatever promised to be adventurous and fun. On a Christmas vacation trip east with Harry I bought a new tan Plymouth convertible in Detroit. At home, we’d tool around the state, go to festivals and beer busts.
Another friend, James Sasaki, was a mild-mannered, brilliant Japanese citizen. He was about thirty, slender, with a narrow, squarish face and slicked-down hair parted in the middle. During his nine years in America, Sasaki had attended Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, and he was now at USC. Because he was well versed in American history and slang we occasionally talked about athletics after our political science class. His educational zeal impressed me. We had two things in common: a love of sports and many Japanese friends in the South Bay area.
DEAN CROMWELL GREW unhappy with my attitude. He didn’t say much, but I could tell what he thought from the way he looked at me. In the fall of 1939 I’d received many calls from indoor track-meet promoters, begging me to run. At first I said no, but they hounded me until I was ready to give in. Cromwell forbade it. “You can’t do it, Louie,” he said. “You’re on a scholarship here. And you’ll wear yourself out before track season. Running indoors is not the same, and the cold weather back east will knock you flat. You’re not used to it.”
When someone stood in the way of what I wanted, I stopped listening. “Well, I’m working at the studios making thirty-five bucks a week,” I countered, “so I have money.” (When studios needed extras, athletes at USC and UCLA often got first crack. I got to work on Juarez and The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton.)
The only way I could compete indoors was to quit school and my scholarship on a Friday, race on the weekend, and reregister on Monday. That would cost $170, but the promoters promised to cover me. I finally gave in and defied Coach Cromwell by accepting an invitation to run at Madison Square Garden. I ran under the auspices of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Every Friday afternoon I caught a plane for New York, ran my race, then hopped a return flight to Los Angeles. Sometimes, if I won, I wouldn’t even wait for the grandstand review; I’d just pick up my medal and dash to my hotel across the street, still in my tracksuit. That was foolish. Because of the miserable winter weather I frequently got sick. But I still ran well: ten races in a row under 4:10. In one, the Wanamaker Mile, I ran 4:07.6 with a fever and strep throat, and came in second to Fenske, followed by Glenn Cunningham and Gene Venzke, all of us in record time. Those races kept people saying I had a good shot at being first to break the four-minute barrier.
No matter what Coach Cromwell said, I loved running indoors. There was no wind or weather to contend with. The crowd sat closer; I could see their faces and even smell the women’s perfume. But Cromwell was right: it was different. In their drive to win, the runners did not hesitate to trip, shove, push, and elbow.
The competition finally did me in. We ran on a smaller track, built on boards. At the Garden, the straightaway rose an inch and a half over a terrazzo floor. During one race I got knocked off the track, into a pileup. There’s a picture in Life magazine of everyone in a heap. My shoe slipped into the space beneath the track and floor. Trying to get free, I tore the ligament in the second toe of my left foot.
With time off to recover, I took inventory of my life. When my foot healed I would set my sights on the Tokyo Olympics. I also resolved to work hard and be more disciplined. I felt great that I was once again reaching for excellence in my athletic career.
Unfortunately, I developed a severe chronic pain under my right collarbone. At first I dismissed it as a pinched nerve and kept running, but guys I usually beat by forty or fifty yards suddenly followed closely on my heels or passed me. In desperation I ate baby foods and cereals and tried to regain my strength. Winning meant more to me than anything, but nothing worked. At the 1940 NCAA mile, I lost.
Los Angeles sportswriter Braven Dyer had called me “the greatest distance runner the Far West has ever produced.” Now I feared he’d been wrong and there would never be a four-minute mile for Louis Zamperini.
UNWILLING TO GIVE up, I kept training for the 1940 Olympics coming that September. But one day, while my dad timed me, I collapsed on the track. Then I fell in a race. Cromwell tried to help, but no one really knew what to do. He sent me to a dentist—why?—who diagnosed the problem as an infected wisdom tooth. He pulled it, but my chest still hurt. I saw another doctor, who took out a tonsil. No improvement. A third doctor punctured my sinuses and flushed them out. That didn’t work, either. My times just kept getting worse.
After graduating from USC, several of us went to Lockheed to find work. Even with college degrees we couldn’t get decent jobs. I wanted to work in an office, but they said, “You’ll do manual labor first, then apply for an office job.” They hired me as a spot welder, pending a physical. After the exam the doctor surprised me with the straight dope. “Do you realize your whole right lung is full of pus?” he said. “What?”
“You have pleurisy. You’ve had it for months. You’re the runner, right? I don’t know how you finished a race with a lung full of pus. You only used one lung.” The mystery of my pain solved, I got a shot, took antibiotics, and started working out again. Soon I felt like a tiger, but it was all for nothing. In the meantime, Japan had invaded Manchuria and taken island after island in the Pacific. The 1940 Olympic Games were canceled, and my dreams came crashing down.