An extraordinary true story · A feature in development

Finding Loren

My dad never met his father. I had forty-five years with mine, and I still wasn’t ready to lose him.

A struggling father joins his dad on a journey to Italy to find the WWII pilot their family lost. Seventy-one years after Loren’s plane disappeared, an Italian farm field holds the answer—and a father and son find themselves facing everything they still need to say.

Format
Historical family feature
Stage
In development
Basis
A personal family history
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Three generations. One journey home.

Finding a grandfather.
Holding on to a dad.

The search begins with a plane. The heart of it is the people left behind.

Stephen is raising three daughters in Arkansas, balancing family life with his hopes for a writing career, and wondering what comes next. The person he talks to about almost everything is his dad, Martin.

Then his cousin Hans Wronka has news. The lead investigator in the search for Loren’s downed plane, Hans has spent years following the evidence. Now the family may finally have found the P-47 flown by Martin’s father, Loren, who died in Italy in the final weeks of WWII—before Martin was born.

The journey brings Stephen, his dad, brother, and sister to Italy: long meals, familiar jokes, old habits, and the astonishing experience of watching a piece of their family history emerge from the earth. With Martin’s health worsening, the adventure becomes a reckoning with fatherhood, forgiveness, and the time they have together.

Stephen and his father Martin together in a room
Stephen and Martin. Father and son. Writers and best friends.
Stephen and Martin beside Loren E. Hintz's grave, with American and Italian flags
With Loren—the father Martin never got to meet.

The family behind the search

A life remembered.
A family brought together.

An archival black-and-white photograph of Loren in uniform and Gertie sitting together on porch steps
Loren and Gertie—the life and love at the beginning of this family story.
Hans and Aunty Gretchen standing together overlooking a cemetery in Italy
Hans Wronka and Aunty Gretchen. Hans led the investigation to locate Loren’s downed P-47.
The family gathered beside the Bagnarola town sign during their first trip to Italy
The whole family on the first trip to Italy, together in Bagnarola.
Four children gathered around Loren E. Hintz’s white grave marker in a military cemetery
The next generation, remembering Loren.
Adults and children sitting close together on a couch for a family photograph
Family, together.

The history behind the feature

See the real story unfold.

Explore the search, the discovery, and the remembrance through these videos from the family’s collection.

Finding Loren · The family story, Part 1
Finding Loren · The family story, Part 2
Italian television coverage · TGR
Finding Loren · The family story, Part 3

The documented journey

A story that reaches beyond our family.

Family story · November 2019

Their father’s plane was shot down in WWII. This weekend, they finally buried him

CNN follows Gretchen and Martin’s journey to honor their father after the recovery of his aircraft and additional remains in Italy, bringing generations of the family together for his burial.

By Maddie Capron and Christina Zdanowicz, CNN

Read CNN’s story on KSAT ↗ The National WWII Museum ↗

The search for First Lieutenant Loren E. Hintz

Follow the research and perseverance that brought the family to Italy.

 AirCorps Aviation ↗

Seventy-one years beneath an Italian field

The recovery of Loren’s P-47, his remains, and his dog tags in July 2016.

 AirCorps Aviation ↗

A piece of Loren’s plane lives on

A recovered handle finds a new home in a restored P-47—a physical connection across generations.

Finding Loren · Written by Stephen Hintz

What do we leave our children?

A feature about the fathers we never knew, the ones we can’t imagine losing, and the fathers we are still learning to become.

Discuss the Project