BILL ANALYSIS Ó
ACR 157
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Date of Hearing: April 18, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
Jim Frazier, Chair
ACR 157
(Hadley) - As Amended April 13, 2016
SUBJECT: Louis Zamperini Memorial Highway
SUMMARY: Designates a specified portion of Interstate 405 in
the County of Los Angeles as the "Louis Zamperini Memorial
Highway." Specifically, this resolution:
1)Recounts the life and service of Louis Silvie Zamperini.
2)Designates that portion of Interstate 405 from Redondo Beach
Boulevard to South Western Avenue in the County of Los Angeles
as the "Louis Zamperini Memorial Highway."
3)Requests that the Department of Transportation (Caltrans)
determine the costs of erecting appropriate signs consistent
with the signing requirements for the state highway system,
showing the special designation, and upon receiving donations
from non-state sources covering the cost, to erect those
signs.
EXISTING LAW: Assigns Caltrans the responsibility of operating
and maintaining state highways including the installation and
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maintenance of highway signs.
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown, but the measure requests that Caltrans
only erect the appropriate signage upon receiving donations from
non-state sources covering the cost.
COMMENTS: The author seeks to honor the life and service of
Louis Silvie Zamperini, whose story has been recounted in the
2010 biography, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival,
Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand and in the 2014
film Unbroken. Specially, Mr. Zamperini was born in 1917 in New
York. He joined the track team in high school and set the
national high school record in the mile at the Los Angeles
Memorial Coliseum in 1934, earning him the nickname of the
"Torrance Tornado." He earned a scholarship to the University
of Southern California.
Two years later, in the 5,000-meter Olympic trials at Randalls
Island in New York, Zamperini finished in a dead heat with Don
Lash, the world-record holder, which qualified him for the 1936
Olympics in Berlin as a teenager. In 1938, Zamperini set a
national collegiate mile record of 4:08.3, which stood for 15
years. He subsequently graduated from the University of
Southern California, then when World War II broke out, he
enlisted in 1941 in the United States Army Air Corps and became
a bombardier on a Consolidated B-24 bomber in the Pacific
theater of operations.
During a search and rescue mission to save a downed pilot,
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Zamperini's airplane crashed due to mechanical failure, and he
and two other airmen were the only survivors of the 11-man crew
on board the airplane. One of the men died after 33 days, and
Louis Zamperini and the other airman were stranded on a raft for
a total of 47 days before washing ashore on a Pacific island and
being taken as prisoners of war (POWs) by the Japanese.
Zamperini was tortured for the next two years and was only
released and returned to the United States after the end of the
war in the Pacific in 1945.
After the war, he founded a camp for troubled youths called the
Victory Boys Camp. In 1949, Zamperini recommitted his life to
Christ, and forgave his Japanese tormentors. Zamperini passed
away on July 2, 2014, at his home in Los Angeles, at 97 years of
age.
Louis Zamperini was a defiant, resourceful, and determined man.
He became an Olympic athlete and survived a plane crash, being
lost at sea, and the worst of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp
during World War II. In 1998, he carried the Olympic torch at
the Winter Olympics held in Nagano, Japan. Mr. Zamperini also
spent the last 65 years of his life sharing his faith and his
philosophy of life with as many audiences as would invite him to
speak. According to the author, Louis Zamperini is an
outstanding role model for young Californians. Further, he
states that, throughout his life, Zamperini held himself to
incredibly high standards, and overcame and achieved an
incredible amount in his 97 years and left a legacy for others
to aspire to.
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REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Melissa White / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093