I heard something about this and decided to so some digging. Apparently Manning and Bergdahl were not the only ones that for what ever reasons decided to betray their oath and their country.
During WWII, an American pilot defected to Nazi Germany. Despite this, he was allowed to reenlist in the US military.
Martin
James Monti was born on October 24, 1921, in St. Louis, Missouri. One
of seven children, four of his brothers would go on to serve in the US
military. Monti had every reason, therefore, to be a patriotic American.
And he was, in a way.
The Coughlin way, that is. It all started
in the 1930s with Charles Edward Coughlin – a Canadian-American Roman
Catholic priest who ran a very popular radio program from Detroit,
Michigan.
By 1934, Father Coughlin had a following of tens of millions
throughout the US and Canada – making him the first televangelist,
albeit via radio. Though initially supportive of President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, he had a change of heart and became a hostile critic
of the New Deal – a series of liberal social programs.
It didn’t
take long for Coughlin to become anti-capitalist, however. From there,
he became virulently anti-Semitic, as well as fiercely anti-communist.
His views made him very unpopular with the Catholic Church which tried
to silence him in 1936.
Not that it made a difference, since it
made him even more popular among his followers. This encouraged Coughlin
to take things a step further by supporting the Fascist regimes of
Germany and Italy. It was only when WWII broke out in 1939 that his
broadcasts were finally taken off the air.
By
then, however, Coughlin had a devoted fan – Monti, who had been
listening to the priest’s broadcasts since childhood. In October 1942,
the 21-year-old Monti visited his childhood hero and spiritual guide.
Whatever happened during their meeting must have had a major impact on
the younger man, according to his later psychologists.
Because
the following month, Monti joined the US Army Air Forces as an aviation
cadet. He finished flight training in 1944, became a commissioned
flight officer qualified to fly the P-39 Airacobra and the P-38
Lighting, and got promoted to the rank of second lieutenant.
In August of that year, he was sent to Karachi (then in India, but now in Pakistan) to join the 126th
Replacement Depot as a replacement pilot. Shortly after, he was made a
first lieutenant. It’s still unknown if he went to India planning to do
what he did next, or if something happened there to push him over the
edge.
On October 2, Monti went AWOL and flew to Cairo, Egypt
aboard a Curtiss C-46. From there, he made his way to Tripoli, Libya
which had just been liberated from Axis control. He then made it to the
Foggia Air Base in Italy (also under Allied control) where he became
chummy with the 82nd Fighter Group… but not for long.
Monti’s next stop was at the Pomigliano Airfield with the 354th
Air Service Squadron. It was there that he found a reconnaissance P-38
that had just been fixed and was in need of a test flight. He
volunteered to fly it, of course. Not knowing about his AWOL status,
they let him.
He flew toward northern Italy, landing in Milan on
October 13 – which was still under German control. That they didn’t
shoot him down was amazing.
“I defect,” he said… or something to that effect.
They
didn’t believe him, of course, which is why they chucked him into a POW
camp. But he was consistent with his story. Like Coughlin, he was
virulently anti-capitalist, anti-communist, and anti-Semitic.
What
he wasn’t, according to his own later testimony, was anti-American. He
did what he did to save his country from its true enemy – Bolshevism. It
wasn’t his fault that America couldn’t understand the real threat.
Cautiously
impressed, the Germans took him to Berlin. There Monti was brought into
the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers studio – a propaganda arm of the Waffen-SS
where many foreign defectors worked. He made his first mike test in
December and was deemed good enough to make radio broadcasts.
In
January 1945, he was employed by the Reich Broadcasting Corporation
(RRG) and given the pseudonym, “Captain Martin Wiethaupt.” His job was
to be the equivalent of Coughlin, but over German radio.
It was
there that he met another defector – “Axis Sally.” Her real name was
Mildred Elizabeth Gillars – an American who had married a German and
found herself stuck on German soil when the war broke out. It could have
been a match made in heaven, but it wasn’t.
Gillars couldn’t stand Monti and threatened to resign rather than continue working with him. Fortunately for her, Monti was useless as a radio personality, so the RRG sacked him. Fortunately for him, he got a job with the SS – writing propaganda leaflets.
It
didn’t last. The war ended, and he surrendered to the US military on
May 10, 1945… still in his SS uniform. He claimed to have been caught by
the Germans, but had escaped thanks to the Italian underground. The
uniform? He stole it for his protection and to gather intelligence for
the Allies.
No one bought it, of course. As to his brief stint as
“Captain Martin Wiethaupt,” he claimed that it was done at the point of a
gun. They didn’t believe that either, but they weren’t exactly sure what he did do. All they could do was charge him with desertion and stealing a plane – for which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
On
February 11, 1946, Monti was given another choice – rejoin the military
as a private and all would be forgiven. So he became a sergeant when he
was honorably discharged on January 26, 1948… then arrested minutes
later by the FBI. Military intelligence had found out about his SS
affiliation. A federal grand jury charged him with 21 counts of treason
on October 13 – remanding him to 25 years in prison and a fine of
$10,000.
Monti pleaded guilty to all charges on January 17, 1949 –
surprising everyone who had expected a long, drawn-out trial. He
changed his tune in 1951, however, claiming he had been pressured into
it.
He tried again in 1958, but failed, serving out his term at
the Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas. They finally paroled him in
1960.
Wow. Never heard this one. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHey Murphy;
DeleteYeah it was a strange story I heard about it a few years ago, All of my history books never mentioned it. Funny how more information is available now than before.
That's a truly odd one... Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHey Old NFO;
DeleteIt was an odd one, I remember that the Germans had a squadron of "captured" allied planes...I wonder if the P38 wound up there.
Holy cow. That's some story.
ReplyDeleteHey Borepatch;
DeleteYep it was a strange one, I remembered reading about it and it did caught my eye, especially about a pilot defecting.
Amazing story. Amazing how much one guy could get away with before instantaneous access to records 'n such.
ReplyDelete