A western New York community has installed a granite monument as a tribute to Louis Zamperini, whose story of survival during World War II is the subject of a best-selling book and a Hollywood movie. Zamperini was born in 1917 in Olean, a city near the Pennsylvania border 60 miles southeast of Buffalo. He was 2 when his Italian immigrant parents moved the family to Torrance, California.

He was a world-class Olympian distance runner in the 1930s. During the war, Zamperini survived 47 days on a raft after his bomber crashed in the Pacific. He spent more than two years as a prisoner of the Japanese. He died in July at 97. His story was told in the 2010 best-seller "Unbroken." The Angelina Jolie-directed film is being released in December.

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Source: http://www.therepublic.com/