Unbroken: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

By the time the crew of the Super Man arrives at the Allied-controlled island of Oahu, Japanese bombing runs have already scarred the Hickam military base. Louie’s crew also gains a new co-pilot, Charleton Hugh Cuppernell, a jovial ex-football player. The men continue training on the island and patrolling the ocean for enemy planes.

Soon, the crew gets their first orders. The men will head to Wake Atoll where the Japanese have built an airbase. It will take sixteen hours to reach Wake Atoll, bomb it, and then return. As Super Man flies over Wake Atoll, antiaircraft guns shoot into the sky. Louie’s bombs hit the airstrip, blowing up bunkers and nearly destroying a grounded Japanese fighter plane called a Zero.

When they head back to a U.S. airbase at Midway, Super Man’s bomb doors refuse to close, causing the the plane to eat up more gasoline than expected. All the crewmen can do is hope that Super Man will stay in the air long enough to get them home. With the airbase in sight, one of the engines runs out of gas. As Phil touches the plane down on the airstrip, the engines sputter and die. If they had been in the air only a little bit longer, they would have crashed from a lack of fuel.

A few days after the raid, Louie finds a cartoon in one of the military newspapers depicting him as an Olympic runner and describing the successful bombing of Wake Atoll. With the success of the bombing behind them, a lot of the men think the war will be won in a matter of months. Doubtful, Phil writes a letter to his mother, saying that all the talk of victory is too premature.