" In Sugamo, Louie asked his escort what had happened to the Bird. He was told that it was believed that the former sergeant, hunted, exiled and in despair, had stabbed himself to death.
The words washed over Louie. In prison camp, Watanabe had forced him to live in incomprehensible degradation and violence. Bereft of his dignity, Louie had come home to a life lost in darkness, and had dashed himself against the memory of the Bird. But on an October night in Los Angeles, Louie had found, in Payton Jordan’s words, “daybreak.” That night, the sense of shame and powerlessness that had driven his hate the Bird had vanished. The Bird was no longer his monster. He was only a man.
In Sugamo Prison, as he was told of Watanabe’s fate, all Louie saw was a lost person, a life beyond redemption. He felt something that he had never felt fro his captor before. With a shiver of amazement, he realized that it was compassion.
At that moment, something shifted swiftly inside him. It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the was was over. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Unbroken: An Olympian's Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive