 During World War II, the city of Naoetsu was the site of a POW camp that garnered international focus from the best-selling biography, "" by Laura Hillenbrand and later, the movie adaptation, "Unbroken" in 2014.The book and movie focus on former Olympic track star Louis Zamperini and the brutal mistreatment of him and his fellow soldiers at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army corporal, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, infamously known as "The Bird".According to the book, Watanabe fled Naoetsu after the Allied forces invaded Japan and was never charged, despite being one of General Douglas MacArthur's top 40 most-wanted war criminals.