Unbroken

by

Laura Hillenbrand

Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips Character Analysis

Louie’s pilot and dependable best friend during the war. One of the survivors of the plane crash, he remains confident and good-spirited on the raft. Despite not bearing any responsibility for the crash, Phil’s strong moral conscience makes him feel guilt for the dead crewmen. A quiet man, Phil’s deep religious convictions and his love for his fiancé Cecy Perry help him bear and survive the experiences of war with graceful fortitude.

Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips Quotes in Unbroken

The Unbroken quotes below are all either spoken by Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips or refer to Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Survival and Resilience Theme Icon
).
Chapter 6 Quotes

From this day forward, until victory or defeat, transfer, discharge, capture, or death took them from it, the vast Pacific would be beneath and around them. Its bottom was already littered with downed warplanes and the ghosts of lost airmen. Every day of this long and ferocious war, more would join them.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

In World War II, 35,933 AAF planes were lost in combat and accidents. The surprise of the attrition rate is that only a fraction of the ill-fated planes were lost in combat. In 1943 in the Pacific Ocean Areas theater in which Phil’s crew served, for every plane lost in combat, some six planes were lost in accidents. Over time, combat took a greater toll, but combat losses never overtook noncombat losses.

Related Characters: Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:

And like everyone else, Louie and Phil drank. After a few beers, Louie said, it was possible to briefly forget dead friends.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

When they arrived at the crash site, the men were astonished by what they saw. Two life rafts, holding the entire five-man B-25 crew, floated amid plane debris. Around them, the ocean was churning with hundreds of sharks, some of which looked twenty feet long. Knifing agitated circles in the water, the creatures seemed on the verge of overturning the rafts.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Related Symbols: Sharks
Page Number: 96
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

For Louie and Phil, the conversations were healing, pulling them out of their suffering and setting the future before them as a concrete thing. As they imagined themselves back in the world again, they willed a happy ending onto their ordeal and made it their expectation. With these talks, they created something to live for.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis:

They bowed their heads together as Louie prayed. If God would quench their thirst, he vowed, he’d dedicate his life to him. The next day, by divine intervention or the fickle humors of the tropics, the sky broke open and rain poured down. Twice more the water ran out, twice more they prayed, and twice more the rain came.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. Men subjected to dehumanizing treatment experience profound wretchedness and loneliness and find that hope is almost impossible to retain.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:

Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. The loss of it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure, and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty. In places like Kwajalein, degradation could be as lethal as a bullet.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

For these men, the central struggle of postwar life was to restore their dignity and find a way to see the world as something other than menacing blackness. There was no one right way to peace; every man had to find his own path, according to his own history. Some succeeded. For others, the war would never really end.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips, Fred Garret
Page Number: 357
Explanation and Analysis:
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Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips Quotes in Unbroken

The Unbroken quotes below are all either spoken by Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips or refer to Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Survival and Resilience Theme Icon
).
Chapter 6 Quotes

From this day forward, until victory or defeat, transfer, discharge, capture, or death took them from it, the vast Pacific would be beneath and around them. Its bottom was already littered with downed warplanes and the ghosts of lost airmen. Every day of this long and ferocious war, more would join them.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

In World War II, 35,933 AAF planes were lost in combat and accidents. The surprise of the attrition rate is that only a fraction of the ill-fated planes were lost in combat. In 1943 in the Pacific Ocean Areas theater in which Phil’s crew served, for every plane lost in combat, some six planes were lost in accidents. Over time, combat took a greater toll, but combat losses never overtook noncombat losses.

Related Characters: Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:

And like everyone else, Louie and Phil drank. After a few beers, Louie said, it was possible to briefly forget dead friends.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

When they arrived at the crash site, the men were astonished by what they saw. Two life rafts, holding the entire five-man B-25 crew, floated amid plane debris. Around them, the ocean was churning with hundreds of sharks, some of which looked twenty feet long. Knifing agitated circles in the water, the creatures seemed on the verge of overturning the rafts.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Related Symbols: Sharks
Page Number: 96
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

For Louie and Phil, the conversations were healing, pulling them out of their suffering and setting the future before them as a concrete thing. As they imagined themselves back in the world again, they willed a happy ending onto their ordeal and made it their expectation. With these talks, they created something to live for.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis:

They bowed their heads together as Louie prayed. If God would quench their thirst, he vowed, he’d dedicate his life to him. The next day, by divine intervention or the fickle humors of the tropics, the sky broke open and rain poured down. Twice more the water ran out, twice more they prayed, and twice more the rain came.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. Men subjected to dehumanizing treatment experience profound wretchedness and loneliness and find that hope is almost impossible to retain.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:

Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. The loss of it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure, and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty. In places like Kwajalein, degradation could be as lethal as a bullet.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

For these men, the central struggle of postwar life was to restore their dignity and find a way to see the world as something other than menacing blackness. There was no one right way to peace; every man had to find his own path, according to his own history. Some succeeded. For others, the war would never really end.

Related Characters: Louis “Louie” Zamperini, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips, Fred Garret
Page Number: 357
Explanation and Analysis: