A Reporter's Journey To Find The B-17 Her Grandfather Flew In WWII

Published November 11, 2015 at 11:40 AM CST

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Reporter Ashley Ahearn with her father Joe Ahearn Jr. Ahearn researched the history of the Boeing B-17 bomber, said to have won the war. Boeing recruited workers from around the country to build the bomber – many were women, and many were black. (Katie Campbell/EarthFix)

The B-17 has been called the plane that won World War II. Thousands upon thousands of these planes blackened the skies over Germany and France during the war, and thousands of young men risked their lives in the planes to drop bombs that obliterated whole towns in Nazi-controlled Europe.

Ashley Ahearn’s grandfather was one of those men. Her family is from the Boston area, but she’s now a reporter for Here & Now contributor KUOW in Seattle, which, it turns out, is where her grandfather’s B17 was built.

Read Ashley Ahearn’s full story via KUOW

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Ashley Ahearn, environment reporter at KUOW and part of the multimedia collaborative project EarthFix. She tweets @aahearn.