Louie Zamperini, Olympian and World War II hero, sat through some 75 interviews, answering thousands of questions for his biographer Laura Hillenbrand. The result was the bestselling book “Unbroken,” which was made into a popular movie in 2014.

However, there is more to Zamperini’s story than the movie portrayed. While the movie ended with the celebration of a war hero returning home, Laura Hillenbrand’s book reveals much more. The movie “Unbroken: Path to Redemption,” which will open in movie theaters on Sept. 14, follows the book more closely and tells the rest of the story.

At the end of World War II, thousands of former prisoners of the Japanese, known as Pacific POWs, began their postwar lives. Physically, almost every one of them was ravaged. Men had been crippled and disfigured by unset broken bones, and their teeth had been ruined by beatings. Others had gone blind from malnutrition. Scores of men were so ill that they had to be carried from camps. Some couldn’t be saved. The physical injuries were lasting and debilitating. However, the emotional injuries were much more insidious, widespread, and enduring. Post-traumatic-stress caused many suicides.

On returning home, Louie Zamperini’s emotional wounds began to rule his life. As Laura Hillenbrand writes: “He was drinking heavily, slipping in and out of flashbacks, screaming and clawing through nightmares, and lashing out in fury at random moments.” His flashbacks centered around a Japanese prison guard who had so horribly tortured him. In his waking moments, the desire to murder the prison guard had become his secret obsession. In a gym near his apartment, he spent hours slamming his hatred into a punching bag, preparing his body for the confrontation that he believed would save him. He walked around every day with murder in his heart.

For Zamperini’s wife the nightmares became life-threatening; her husband’s unreasonable behavior almost brought an end to the marriage. As a last resort, Cynthia Zamperini begged her husband to attend a Billy Graham Crusade in Los Angeles. Her fervent prayer had been, “God, help Louie find peace and the forgiveness he so desperately needs.” Louie attended the crusade only to please his wife and slipped out early the first night. On the second night, he planned to leave as soon as the invitation was given. Later he would say, “But the Holy Spirit gripped my heart.” He walked the aisle into the prayer room where he repented of his sins and gave his life wholly to the Lord Jesus. Later he explained, “In a matter of moments my life was changed forever, no more nightmares.” His passion for murder was transformed into a desire to forgive.

Hillenbrand wrote of Louie’s conversion: “What resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him…. In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. He believed he was a new creation.”

Louie wrote a letter to his former enemy. He said: “Under your discipline, my rights, not only as a prisoner of war but also as a human being, were stripped from me. It was a struggle to maintain enough dignity and hope to live until the war’s end. The post-war nightmares caused my life to crumble, but thanks to a confrontation with God through the evangelist Billy Graham, I committed my life to Christ. Love replaced the hate I had for you. Christ said, ‘Forgive your enemies and pray for them.’ I forgave you and now would hope that you would also become a Christian.”

“Unbroken: Path to Redemption” can be seen in theaters beginning Sept. 14.