May 21, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Michael Lella shares the incredible true story of his father, Pino Lella—a teenage hero of the Italian resistance during World War II who helped Jews escape Nazi-occupied Italy and later infiltrated the German High Command. We'd like to thank FEE.org for turning us onto this story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
And our next story comes from Michael Wella, and he
graciously recorded it for us.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
If you were seventeen and growing up in Milan, Italy,
in nineteen forty three, more than likely it would have
been forced, indoctrinated, and brainwashed into fascism. The dictator of
Italy responsible for it, Benito Mussolini, had been in power
since nineteen twenty two. My dad was born in nineteen
(00:41):
twenty six. The voice and image of Il Ducce, as
Italians were obliged to call Mussolini, were ubiquitous in Italy
at the time. Mussolini would ultimately drag the country into
the Second World War on the side of Germany's Adolf Hitler.
My father is now ninety two and lives an hour
north of Milan. His name is Pino Lella. If you
(01:04):
had to pick a time to be a teenager, Milan
nineteen forty three would have been the worst of choices.
In June, as my dad was nearing his seventeenth birthday,
the British began an intensive six month bombing campaign. They
left a third of the city's population homeless. About four
hundred thousand people. My father is younger brother My uncle Mimo,
(01:27):
narrowly escaped death one night following the.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Bombing of a movie theater. They were there to see.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
You were never lovelier with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth,
and they witnessed many casualties. My grandfather, Mikaela, in an
effort to keep his boys from becoming victims of the continued.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Bombing, sent my father an uncle to a Catholic boys' school.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
They were familiar with this school because it was there
that they had learned ski and loved the mountains as children.
The school was located high in the Alps above Lake Como,
not far from the Swiss border. It was called Kaza Alpina,
and it was run by a very courageous priest by
the name of Father Luigi Ray. Being the oldest of
(02:10):
the boys, my dad was singled out by Father Ray
and trained to become an Alpine guide. At first, my
father knew nothing of the Nazi brutality against Jews and others.
In fact, he had learned to respect the Nazi high command,
many of whom were customers of his family's leather goods
store in Milan. They had occupied Milan as brothers in
(02:33):
arms to defend Milan from the British bombing. But my
dad became brutally aware of the Nazi crimes in September
of nineteen forty three, when word came of fifty two
prominent Jews being rounded up by the Nazis and executed
in the village of Mana on Lago Majori. Their bodies
were thrown into the lake for the local citizens to see.
(02:56):
It was then that many Italians rebelled and began hiding.
Protecting their Jewish Italian friends. They formed an underground railroad.
For nine harrowing months. While at Kasalpina, my father guided
many Jewish refugees across the Alps into neutral Switzerland to
escape Italy. He risked his life evading Nazi patrols, surviving
(03:21):
avalanches and grenade attacks. He was robbed by bandits disguising
themselves as anti fascist partisans.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
He often carried the weak and the elderly on his back,
and the dead.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Of winter over the top of the Alps, some of
the world's most rugged mountain terrain. Some had embarked on
this journey with my father in such a way that
they wore street shoes, not exactly hiking gear for the
Alps and blowzier of temperatures at the time. My dad
simply did what he was told to do and thought
(03:53):
little of it. Father Ray instructed him to take people
to safety, and so he did it. He knew it was,
of course, but even to this day he doesn't think
of what he did as heroic. He had faith in
doing the right thing and such a high regard for
Father Ray that he would have done anything for him.
The missions gave him an identity, a meaningful purpose, and
(04:17):
an opportunity to lead, and like many seventeen year olds
with reckless abandon he thrived on the excitement and adventure.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Of it all, at least what lasted.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
In June of nineteen forty four, my father turned eighteen,
the age at which young Italians were drafted by the
state into the military.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
He had two choices.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
He could join Mussolini's Fascist army and quite likely end
up on the Russian Front. His other option was to
conscript with the German army. His aunt and uncle had
connections that might land him a secure and hopefully a
safer job in the organization TAUNT. This was the Armament
and the Construction Division of the Third Reich for his safety,
(05:04):
but against his wishes, Pino's father and mother talked.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Him into enlisting in the German Army.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Dad reluctantly donned the military uniform with a Nazi swastika.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
What happened next was almost unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Through a series of extraordinary circumstances, including his wounding during
an Allied bombing raid, my father was ordered back to
Milan to convalesce for two weeks. Then, with a little
helpful family and his ability to speak French and drive
a car, he landed a position as the personal driver
(05:40):
and confidant for one of Hitler's most mysterious officers in
the German High Command. He was a man so powerful
in Italy that he responded directly personally.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And only to Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
His name was General hunts Lairs, the plenty potent chariot
of the Italian sector for organization, taught Teppino's aunt and
uncle his assignment as a driver for such a powerful
figure was a serendipitous opportunity of a lifetime. It could
help change the direction of the war. They understood the
(06:16):
importance of it because they were already working in secret
for the Allies and the Italian Resistance. The kind of
information their nephew would now have access to could be
critical for the fight against the Germans. My father, still
a teenager, as a new and personal driver for this
top Nazi commander, became a spy known to the Allies
(06:39):
as the Observer. For the last year of the war,
while driving General Layers around northern Italy, my dad learned
the locations of tank traps, land mines, ammunition tunnels, and
every fortification between Florence and Milan.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Observed the German's main defensive position. He secretly documented troop movements,
He took notes and photos, and he fed mounds of
that crucial information to the Allies by using Uncle.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Albert's shortwave OSS radio.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
More than once.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
My father was nearly caught, which would likely have led
to his torture and execution, but he kept the trust of.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
An unwitting General Layers.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
My dad personally witnessed the Nazi persecution of Jews, as
well as the working to death of slaves for many
faiths and nationalities in work camps, hoping and dreaming that
one day he could testify against those responsible. At midnight
on April twenty fourth, nineteen forty five, Upon orders from
(07:48):
the resistance, my father single handedly arrested General haunts Lairs
and delivered him to the American command, which was led
by fifth U s Army Major Frank Nabel. For the
next five days, he became Major nables personal guide and translator,
at last discarding his uniform.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
And the Nazi swastika.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
On April twenty eighth, Pino and Major Nabel witness a
hideous moment in Italian history, the public desecration of Mussolini's
body in Pezzali Loreto amid the hysteria and fanaticism of
the frenzied Italian mops, Hitler killed himself in Berlin two
days later. With the deaths of the two Fascist dictators,
(08:35):
my father thought he was finished.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
With the war, but in fact the war wasn't quite
finished with him. In early May, the.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Famous Brenner passed through the Alps was the most dangerous
corner of Europe. The German army was retreating from Italy,
threw the pass into Austria.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Thousands of Nazi troops that refused.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
To surrender were on the run, being chased down and
cut off by Italian resistance spiders. On the US Army.
In the midst of this, my father was asked if
he would do America a favor and accept the final mission.
The Americans asked my dad to be a guide one
last time, leading one final escape from Italy.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
His mission was to drive an.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Important, high ranking Nazi from American custody to the Austrian border,
where he could safely be interrogated for the intelligence he
possessed about Hitler's Reich. Who was this top general my
dad was enlisted to escort to safety none other than
the very man he had driven for, the very man
(09:40):
he had arrested and turned over to the Allies just
weeks before, General Hunts Layers. Distraught and tormented over the
events of the last week of the war, my father
accepted that final mission. You could only imagine the conversation
in the car between my dad and General Layers. By
the evening of that same day, May third, nineteen forty five,
(10:04):
my dad delivered General Layers to the Americans waiting for
him on the Austrian border. That final escort ended my
father's involvement in World War Two, But, like many of
that greatest generation, the experience and the weeks preceding the
war's end, continued to haunt him for the rest of
his life, and to.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Hear the rest of pino Lella's remarkable story. Pick up
Mark Sullivan's best selling book about him, Beneath a Scarlet Sky,
and thanks to the son Michael, Michael's story, his dad's story,
a great World War II story. Here on our American
Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
And our next story comes from Michael Wella, and he
graciously recorded it for us.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
If you were seventeen and growing up in Milan, Italy,
in nineteen forty three, more than likely it would have
been forced, indoctrinated, and brainwashed into fascism. The dictator of
Italy responsible for it, Benito Mussolini, had been in power
since nineteen twenty two. My dad was born in nineteen
(00:41):
twenty six. The voice and image of Il Ducce, as
Italians were obliged to call Mussolini, were ubiquitous in Italy
at the time. Mussolini would ultimately drag the country into
the Second World War on the side of Germany's Adolf Hitler.
My father is now ninety two and lives an hour
north of Milan. His name is Pino Lella. If you
(01:04):
had to pick a time to be a teenager, Milan
nineteen forty three would have been the worst of choices.
In June, as my dad was nearing his seventeenth birthday,
the British began an intensive six month bombing campaign. They
left a third of the city's population homeless. About four
hundred thousand people. My father is younger brother My uncle Mimo,
(01:27):
narrowly escaped death one night following the.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Bombing of a movie theater. They were there to see.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
You were never lovelier with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth,
and they witnessed many casualties. My grandfather, Mikaela, in an
effort to keep his boys from becoming victims of the continued.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Bombing, sent my father an uncle to a Catholic boys' school.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
They were familiar with this school because it was there
that they had learned ski and loved the mountains as children.
The school was located high in the Alps above Lake Como,
not far from the Swiss border. It was called Kaza Alpina,
and it was run by a very courageous priest by
the name of Father Luigi Ray. Being the oldest of
(02:10):
the boys, my dad was singled out by Father Ray
and trained to become an Alpine guide. At first, my
father knew nothing of the Nazi brutality against Jews and others.
In fact, he had learned to respect the Nazi high command,
many of whom were customers of his family's leather goods
store in Milan. They had occupied Milan as brothers in
(02:33):
arms to defend Milan from the British bombing. But my
dad became brutally aware of the Nazi crimes in September
of nineteen forty three, when word came of fifty two
prominent Jews being rounded up by the Nazis and executed
in the village of Mana on Lago Majori. Their bodies
were thrown into the lake for the local citizens to see.
(02:56):
It was then that many Italians rebelled and began hiding.
Protecting their Jewish Italian friends. They formed an underground railroad.
For nine harrowing months. While at Kasalpina, my father guided
many Jewish refugees across the Alps into neutral Switzerland to
escape Italy. He risked his life evading Nazi patrols, surviving
(03:21):
avalanches and grenade attacks. He was robbed by bandits disguising
themselves as anti fascist partisans.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
He often carried the weak and the elderly on his back,
and the dead.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Of winter over the top of the Alps, some of
the world's most rugged mountain terrain. Some had embarked on
this journey with my father in such a way that
they wore street shoes, not exactly hiking gear for the
Alps and blowzier of temperatures at the time. My dad
simply did what he was told to do and thought
(03:53):
little of it. Father Ray instructed him to take people
to safety, and so he did it. He knew it was,
of course, but even to this day he doesn't think
of what he did as heroic. He had faith in
doing the right thing and such a high regard for
Father Ray that he would have done anything for him.
The missions gave him an identity, a meaningful purpose, and
(04:17):
an opportunity to lead, and like many seventeen year olds
with reckless abandon he thrived on the excitement and adventure.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Of it all, at least what lasted.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
In June of nineteen forty four, my father turned eighteen,
the age at which young Italians were drafted by the
state into the military.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
He had two choices.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
He could join Mussolini's Fascist army and quite likely end
up on the Russian Front. His other option was to
conscript with the German army. His aunt and uncle had
connections that might land him a secure and hopefully a
safer job in the organization TAUNT. This was the Armament
and the Construction Division of the Third Reich for his safety,
(05:04):
but against his wishes, Pino's father and mother talked.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Him into enlisting in the German Army.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Dad reluctantly donned the military uniform with a Nazi swastika.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
What happened next was almost unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Through a series of extraordinary circumstances, including his wounding during
an Allied bombing raid, my father was ordered back to
Milan to convalesce for two weeks. Then, with a little
helpful family and his ability to speak French and drive
a car, he landed a position as the personal driver
(05:40):
and confidant for one of Hitler's most mysterious officers in
the German High Command. He was a man so powerful
in Italy that he responded directly personally.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And only to Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
His name was General hunts Lairs, the plenty potent chariot
of the Italian sector for organization, taught Teppino's aunt and
uncle his assignment as a driver for such a powerful
figure was a serendipitous opportunity of a lifetime. It could
help change the direction of the war. They understood the
(06:16):
importance of it because they were already working in secret
for the Allies and the Italian Resistance. The kind of
information their nephew would now have access to could be
critical for the fight against the Germans. My father, still
a teenager, as a new and personal driver for this
top Nazi commander, became a spy known to the Allies
(06:39):
as the Observer. For the last year of the war,
while driving General Layers around northern Italy, my dad learned
the locations of tank traps, land mines, ammunition tunnels, and
every fortification between Florence and Milan.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Observed the German's main defensive position. He secretly documented troop movements,
He took notes and photos, and he fed mounds of
that crucial information to the Allies by using Uncle.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Albert's shortwave OSS radio.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
More than once.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
My father was nearly caught, which would likely have led
to his torture and execution, but he kept the trust of.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
An unwitting General Layers.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
My dad personally witnessed the Nazi persecution of Jews, as
well as the working to death of slaves for many
faiths and nationalities in work camps, hoping and dreaming that
one day he could testify against those responsible. At midnight
on April twenty fourth, nineteen forty five, Upon orders from
(07:48):
the resistance, my father single handedly arrested General haunts Lairs
and delivered him to the American command, which was led
by fifth U s Army Major Frank Nabel. For the
next five days, he became Major nables personal guide and translator,
at last discarding his uniform.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
And the Nazi swastika.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
On April twenty eighth, Pino and Major Nabel witness a
hideous moment in Italian history, the public desecration of Mussolini's
body in Pezzali Loreto amid the hysteria and fanaticism of
the frenzied Italian mops, Hitler killed himself in Berlin two
days later. With the deaths of the two Fascist dictators,
(08:35):
my father thought he was finished.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
With the war, but in fact the war wasn't quite
finished with him. In early May, the.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Famous Brenner passed through the Alps was the most dangerous
corner of Europe. The German army was retreating from Italy,
threw the pass into Austria.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Thousands of Nazi troops that refused.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
To surrender were on the run, being chased down and
cut off by Italian resistance spiders. On the US Army.
In the midst of this, my father was asked if
he would do America a favor and accept the final mission.
The Americans asked my dad to be a guide one
last time, leading one final escape from Italy.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
His mission was to drive an.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Important, high ranking Nazi from American custody to the Austrian border,
where he could safely be interrogated for the intelligence he
possessed about Hitler's Reich. Who was this top general my
dad was enlisted to escort to safety none other than
the very man he had driven for, the very man
(09:40):
he had arrested and turned over to the Allies just
weeks before, General Hunts Layers. Distraught and tormented over the
events of the last week of the war, my father
accepted that final mission. You could only imagine the conversation
in the car between my dad and General Layers. By
the evening of that same day, May third, nineteen forty five,
(10:04):
my dad delivered General Layers to the Americans waiting for
him on the Austrian border. That final escort ended my
father's involvement in World War Two, But, like many of
that greatest generation, the experience and the weeks preceding the
war's end, continued to haunt him for the rest of
his life, and to.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Hear the rest of pino Lella's remarkable story. Pick up
Mark Sullivan's best selling book about him, Beneath a Scarlet Sky,
and thanks to the son Michael, Michael's story, his dad's story,
a great World War II story. Here on our American
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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