By October 1944, World War II was looking pretty bleak for the Axis powers, especially in Europe. The Allies had landed in Normandy and were advancing inland in France. In Italy, they captured Rome. The Italian government had fallen, and the Allies were pushing northward past Florence.
Lt. Martin James Monti was desperately flying an unarmed, modified P-38 Lightning photo reconnaissance plane across the Italian Front. Monti was an Army Air Forces pilot, but he wasn't on a recon mission. He had stolen the plane and was headed for the Nazi-occupied city of Milan to defect to the German Army.
Advertisement
Monti was 23 years old when he left his duty station near Karachi, in what is today Pakistan, and made his way to Italy to steal an aircraft. He'd grown up in St. Louis,born into a German and Italian family. When the U.S. entered World War II, Monti and his four brothers joined the military. The brothers had all joined the Navy in 1942. Monti would report for training in the Army Air Forces in 1943.
Before he left for training, however, he made a pit stop in Detroit. It was there he met Father Charles Coughlin. Coughlin was a radio priest whose weekly broadcasts were cut off by the U.S. government in 1939 for their anti-Semitic messages and outspoken support for some of the anti-Bolshevik policies enacted by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
