Latest / The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of / Gina WWII Pilot Story From October 6th, 2025

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Gina WWII Pilot Story From October 6th, 2025 · The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: So I went to a family reunion in Minnesota over
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the weekend, and partially why we were getting together was
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to learn more about this family member who was killed
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: in World War Two. His family always had some unanswered
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: questions about his death.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Well they didn't They didn't have a body for one thing.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Correct. He flew a P forty seven Thunderbolt airplane and
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: he was stationed over in Italy. So they're fighting back
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to Germans in Italy, and they were running missions over
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: a small town in Bologna, and my great uncle's plane
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: went down in a field. He was twenty seven years old,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: left a pregnant wife and one year old baby girl
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: back in the States. He was trying to fly as
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: many missions as he could so he could get home
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to them, and he was very close to meeting that threshold.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Is that one year old baby girl still around?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, Gretchen, and she was there this weekend. She is
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a cool lady. She's like uber liberal.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: She would be a big.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Fan of this show if she if she lived here.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: She asked me, h, she knows I'm on the radio,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: but she she I think she was hoping this was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: an MPR station. She's that she's that liberal.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: She's a cool I the liberal voices here in town.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: It's US an NPR, that's it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's she's a retired librarian, you know, all of
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: our favorite things.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So this is her dad, who she.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I only like librarians when they're retired.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Who she was a year old when he died, and
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: her brother was mom was pregnant with him when when
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: he died. So but so this was World War two
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: years and years and years ago. I hadn't really thought
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: much about it. But there was a message board about
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: this plane that he flew, the P forty seven Thunderbolt,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: and Gretchen just kind of posts did something on there saying, hey,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: but my dad, Lauren Hins flew this. Does anybody out
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: there do they know anything about him?
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: At the same time, there's a guy in Italy. His
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: name's Piero. He's a pilot, but he also is an
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: amateur archaeologist. So he's fascinated by these World War two
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: sites in Italy and excavating them, and he has been
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: tracking plane crashes and finding out the coordinates of where
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: planes went down, and he trying to and so he
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: just happened to be on this website and they connected
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that way and he said, he said, I think I
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: have an idea of where your father's plane went down
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: in this field. They went to Italy and they found
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a man who was a twelve year old boy when
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: this happened. When the plane went down in his the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: field near his house, it caught the barn on fire
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and his like several members of his family perished in
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the fire. But he said he remembered the plane coming
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: down in the field. I mean, if you're twelve year
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: old boy, you're going to remember a plane crashing in
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the field. And he said, I can take you right
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to where it is. Oh, and he you know, it's
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: just a flat field now. But he and they like
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: that went through all this stuff with the Italian government
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: of getting permission to excavate it. Sure enough, Doug Doug
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Doug dug down and they found the plane. They found
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: his dog tags, they found a skeletal remains of him
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: in the plane. So he finally, you know, wow, seventy
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: years later or whatever it was, had a.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Proper how long ago did that happen?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Was in twenty twenty.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I think twenty twenty one.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I think twenty twenty one, did I send that story
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, I've just been looking up the documentary.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah there's a Yeah.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: There's a picture of the excavation side that the guy
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: has found in the chat room.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Just super cool. And what are the odds that this
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Italian guy just happens to have an interest in archaeology
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and aviation and they find themselves on a message board.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I mean that, Yeah, it's just crazy. But one of
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the interesting things though, is this our family went back
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: for the ceremony to uncover it and rebury him, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: they met a bunch of Italian people from the same
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: village whose family's been there for seventy years. The Italians,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and I know this has happened throughout Europe, in France
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: and other places. They still and they have passed this
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: gratitude on generation to generation for the Americans and their
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: help they gave them in World War Two. I mean,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: why should kids that weren't alive then feel that same appreciation,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: But they do, they revere it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: So this movie Finding Lauren is a documentary and I
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: guess Martin, isn't.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: It that's that's his son. His son was past Yea,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: which is sad because he passed on.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but his wife, Pam took it upon himself.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And uh and I actually haven't seen that in
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the movie yet. Well, I need to watch it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: You need to.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: Watch very.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Just and and what his son, his grandson, who
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: did a lot of work on this said, you know,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: this is just one story. There are thousands of families
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah that have that have similar stories. Children, grandchildren
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: that that never met their father grandfather. Uh So look
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: around in your family. I bet you you have story
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: like this in your family.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: My family's not that interesting.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: No, no, No, they were in the they you know,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: they had they had a wood business. They sold firewood.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: That's why my family dated in Augden. They sold firewood.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Oh yours had a business, did they?
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Well?
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Firewood? It was you know.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: But quick, can I add one more thing? Quickly?
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Quickly?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Because we were talking about the Tuskegee Airmen. There's a
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: similar group in World War Two, the Buffalo Soldiers. Yes,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: another African American troop. And Lauren wrote extensively in his
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: journals and when he was first on his way over
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: to Italy, it was on a on a ship, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: he wrote in his journal that there were Buffalo Soldiers
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: on the ship and that everybody was jealous of them
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: because they brought oranges on the ship and everyone's like, oh,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: those are good. Those oranges look great. When Lauren was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: flying his mission in Italy, on the ground, there were
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the Buffalo soldiers, so they were support for them. The
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: first time they quote unquote laid Lauren to rest. Before
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: they found his body, there were some fragments of the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: plane that they gathered and buried. They were buried in
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a shared grave with one of the Buffalo soldiers who
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: had been on the ground and died on that same.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Day, Gina.
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: The movie Finding Lauren is available for free on YouTube.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, I will watch and watch it today.