World War II veteran Louis Zamperini survived being shot at by both Nazis and the Japanese.
So the 82-year-old Hollywood Hills man was an obvious target Wednesday when members of the venerable Los Angeles Breakfast Club decided to honor someone for Veterans Day.
Zamperini was a bombardier on a 1943 flight over the Pacific Ocean when his plane crashed, forcing him to spend 47 days adrift on a life raft.
On Day 27 the raft was strafed by a Japanese bomber and began sinking. For the next three weeks Zamperini and two fellow crew members alternately bailed water from the raft and swatted at circling sharks with their oars before being rescued by a Japanese patrol boat.
Zamperini spent the next 2 1/2 years in a prisoner-of-war camp. When he refused to make propaganda broadcasts for the enemy, he was beaten almost daily.
His experience with the Nazis had been stranger.
Zamperini recalled how as a former Torrance High School and USC track star he was competing in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin when, on a lark, he swiped the Nazi flag off Hitler's staff car.
German soldiers guarding Hitler's chancellery fired at him to save der Fuehrer's swastika, he said. As would be the case later in the life raft, Zamperini wasn't hit.
No wonder he was a hit at the Breakfast Club.
"Lou's one of the most amazing members of the USC family of all time," marveled university President Steven B. Sample--who presented Zamperini with a plaque during the club meeting.
Wednesday's presentation was reminiscent of one made at a 1945 Breakfast Club meeting when then-USC President Rufus von KleinSmid awarded a medal to Zamperini.
The idea of re-creating that moment came to club member Millie Eller when she set out to organize a veterans-themed program for this year.
"We're honoring all of the veterans of all of the wars," Eller explained. "But Lou's one of the great heroes of World War II."
The breakfast was a preview of activities scheduled today around the Los Angeles area to honor American military veterans. Those include the following:
* Santa Monica officials will dedicate a veterans memorial made of 8-foot granite columns representing the five branches of the armed services. The 10 a.m. ceremony at Palisades Park north of Santa Monica Boulevard will feature an aircraft flyover and comments by retired Adm. Ron Tucker, a Santa Monica High graduate.
