OGDEN, Merle Vernon 1920-1944
OGDEN
Posted By: Deidre Badker (email)
Date: 6/13/2006 at 09:52:12
#1 of 5 items:
LT. MERLE OGDEN RITES ON SUNDAY AT ST. ANSGAR, IOWA
A military funeral will be conducted at the high school auditorium here Sunday for Second Lt. Merle V. Ogden who was killed in a plane crash in the suburbs of Lomita, California Monday.
The service at 2:30 p.m. will be conducted by Rev. W. F. Belling, pastor of the Methodist church here. Burial will be in the St. Ansgar, Iowa cemetery.
(From St. Ansgar, Iowa Enterprise - January 1944)
Above submitted by Deidre Badker, b.badker@earthlink.net 6/13/2006
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#2:St. Ansgar Pilot Dies in Plane Crash
LT. MERLE OGDEN VICTIM; LEAVES PARENTS, SISTER
P-38 Interceptor Rips Off Part of Room Where Child Had Lain.
Los Angeles, Cal.—(INS)—Heroism and death walked hand in hand Monday for Second Lt. Merle V. Ogden of St. Ansgar, la., who deliberately crashed his P-38 plane into a vacant lot to save the lives of hundreds of school children.
Witnesses told how the plane circled suburban Lomita, in trouble, and that when it took its last fatal dive, the pilot maneuvered it into the only vacant lot nearby to save children at the Narbonne High School although it meant his own death.
These same witnesses pointed out that Lieutenant Ogden might have brought his plane down on the extensive school grounds without serious injury to himself but it would have meant the lives of several pupils who were scattered thickly about the area.
Instead, he chose the lot -— where a victory garden was growing -— too small for any possible
safe landing.Memories of Pearl Harbor saved a mother and her sick child from possible death in the crash.
"Knew Plane in Trouble."
Mrs. Laura Jones, wife of a navy chief warrant officer, told how she heard the plane overhead and, looking out the window, knew that it was in trouble.
"It was circling in an attempt to gain altitude," she said, "but I had seen planes and heard motors like that before at Pearl Harbor and I knew it was going to crash."
She picked up her 7-year-old son, Wilson, out of bed where he was sick with influenza, and ran to a neighbor's house just before the plane ploughed into the vacant lot and then careened into the Jones house, taking off a corner of the very bedroom where they had been a minute before.
[ Waterloo Daily Courier - Tuesday, January 18, 1944 ]
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#3:High School Athlete.
St. Ansgar, IOWA — Second Lt. Merle Vernon Ogden, 23, who was killed in the crash of his twin-engined P-38 Interceptor plane Monday in a suburb of Lomita, California, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Ogden, farmers west of St. Ansgar.
He was graduated from Carpenter high school, where he was prominent in athletics. He had
been employed in an aircraft plant in California before enlisting in the army air forces, and received basic training at Gardner field, California.Surviving besides his parents is a sister, Mary Lou, at home.
[ Waterloo Daily Courier - Tuesday, January 18, 1944 ]
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#4:The listing for the St. Ansgar City Cemetery shows:
OGDEN, Merle V.; born: Sept. 10, 1920; died: Jan. 17, 1944
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#5:Photos below are (l) Merle's 1938 Carpenter High School senior class photograph, and (r) a photo of him as a pilot, from the Jan. 18, 1944 Mason City Globe Gazette.
Mitchell Obituaries maintained by Sharyl Ferrall.
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