Siegler: You can help honor a local WWII hero

Letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

I am writing you about a World War 2 hero from Alachua County who is perhaps all but forgotten now.

My father was Staff Sgt. Monte Ogens. He was an aviator with the 301^st Bomb Group, 353rd Bomb Squadron, 15^th Air Force. His last flight of the war, on January 11, 1944, was on B-17 bomber No. 42-30357. Flying in formation with my father’s plane was B-17 42-31396, from the same bomb group and squadron. The plane’s navigator was 2^nd Lt. Reed W. Dean, from Alachua County.

My father and Lt. Dean, along with 80 B-17 crewmen in eight planes, experienced one of the worst mid-air collisions of World War 2 when, on their way to bombing German installations in the Greek port of Piraeus, two of the planes in their group got lost in the clouds and crashed into six others. Sixteen airmen survived, including my father. Sixty-four airmen died, including Lt. Dean. My father’s plane crashed between the small Peloponnesian villages of Platanitsa and Agrampela. Lt. Dean’s plane crashed on the next mountain over, near Livartzi.

After the crash, my father and the two other survivors from 42-30357 were rescued by Greek shepherds and taken to the local monastery, known as Moni Poretsou, under the shadow of Mt. Erymanthos. The next day, my father trekked back up the mountainside to find and bury his seven crewmates who did not survive. Greek Orthodox priests performed funeral rites for the fallen airmen all over the mountainsides.  After the war, Lt. Dean’s remains were retrieved and re-interred in the National Cemetery at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. 

This past spring, my brothers and I traveled to these small villages to see where this story that was so important to our family had taken place. We did not know if anyone in the area would even know anything about the crash. We were surprised beyond our imaginings. 

Within the first hour of our arrival, we met the son of the shepherd who had rescued our father. The following day five Greek Orthodox priests, including the Metropolitan (or bishop), performed a memorial service for the fallen aviators at the very mountainside gravesite where my father had buried three of the Americans 80 years earlier. We had thought we would be coming to thank the people who had saved our father, but we were met with at least an equal amount of thanks for the sacrifices made by the Americans who helped to liberate Greece.  

Coincidentally with our early 2024 visit, the local people had, in late 2023, commissioned drawings and cost estimates for a memorial, to be erected at Moni Poretsou, memorializing the American flyers who had perished in the mountains, the ones who had survived, and the Greeks who had honored the fallen and sheltered the survivors. The estimated cost in late 2023 was about $60,000. Our family volunteered to help raise half of the cost. Perhaps some people from Alachua County might be interested in contributing to the memorial. If so, we have set up a GoFundMe page, which can be found at https://gofund.me/400ec3da. The GoFundMe site also contains pictures.

When, after two full days of activities in the mountains, sleeping under the same roof that had sheltered our father, our family left, one local woman wrote this: “How touching to see how love and appreciation cross the boundaries of time and space, while memory gives us strength for the future.” 

We would very much appreciate any contributions, however small or large, to help assure that the memory of these events continues into the future.

Sincerely,
Kate Siegler
Ashland, WI

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