Eastview Football Team Learns WWII History at Fleming Field Hangar

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Editor's note: The following information was submitted by the Eastview football program.

Members of the football team went to a hangar at Fleming Field in South St. Paul on Saturday, where the Commemorative Air Force gave the players a short history lesson on the restored World War II B-25 Miss Mitchell, as well as a tour of the plane itself.

It was a day for players to learn more than football and X's and O's—it was a day to learn about history and life.

This year's theme for the Eastview football team is "Unbroken," derived from the book of the same name by Laura Hillenbrand about the Olympic miler Louis Zamperini, who joined the Air Force when WWII broke out. The entire team Eastview football team is reading the book, and the Saturday trip was meant to make the book more real for the students.

Zamperini's plane crashed in the Pacific, and he survived weeks on a life raft only to be thrown in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. His is a story of courage, strength, commitment and resiliency, traits that staff hope the Eastview football team will learn.