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Greek / American Operational Group Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
Memoirs of World War 2

Congressional Gold Medal

Personal Consequences, too

Imagine it: You would go the Veterans Administration, and the VA would say you had not served. Why? No records. Historians and veterans would look at you as a liar if you mentioned your duty. No records. 253 days in warfare on the front lines in the Adriatic and behind the enemy lines in occupied Greece. No records available.

The records were classified as top-secret, but we did not know that. No-one told us. The records began to be declassified by the CIA and transferred to the National Archive about forty-two years after the war. I did not see any records of my own group until the 1990s. Then in 2014 — through the help of my son Soter and through the help of Dan Muryako the AmVets advocate in Oakland, and through examinations by Josh Olney and others at the Veterans Administration clinic at Oakland — the VA recognized me as 100% disabled because of injuries sustained during warfare in US military service during WW2.[note 1] That was sixty-nine years after the war.

So, I wasn't pleased when the American ethnic USOGs were ignored at the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at Washington DC, March 2018.

There was an OSS reception on March 20th, the evening before the medal ceremony. I went uninvited to the podium during the reception to ask if there were any other veterans of the USOGs in the audience. I had to walk up and ask, because none of the very few veterans in the audience had been introduced publicly by the OSS Society except one of the Society's favorites (and none were invited to speak except the one the next day at the ceremony either). The OSS Society members on the podium were not pleased by this old guy's request to speak at the reception on the eve of the ceremony, but they gave me the microphone for a moment. I asked if there were any USOG veterans in the audience. I found that, yes, at 93 years old, I was the only veteran from all of the ethnic USOGs.

The next day at the ceremony, I did not expect to be introduced. I was handed my medal while sitting in the audience. I was very pleased with the medal … until after the ceremony when I had time to peruse it and saw that it had a lot of abbreviations and acronyms on it for various OSS units and operations but not the short abbreviation "USOG", not even just the two letters "OG".

Final Words:
My purpose for writing these memoirs

Writing these memoirs, I've struggled to make sure that the brave young men are remembered who volunteered into their respective USOGs for hazardous duty behind enemy lines.

I have never meant to glamorize war, not even to glamorize my involvement with the elite Operational Groups. I am sad whenever it appears to me that I might have. For instance on Sunday March 25, 2018, the Sunday after I returned from Washington DC, I was invited by our parish priest Father Tom Zaferes at the behest of the Parish Council of the Ascension Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Oakland, California, to come forward at the end of the church service to be honored because of the Congressional Gold Medal. There was a outburst of approval from the congregation. I wish I had the opportunity to speak. I went quietly back to my seat in the congregation. A couple of teenagers nearby whispered "thank you" to me for my WW2 service. I couldn't say anything. I might have shouted to warn them, "War is hell on earth!"

The next day, I spoke by invitation to an association of senior citizens at Rossmoor, Walnut Creek, California. They are Greek-Americans, very old now but still younger than me. There were familiar faces I have known for a long time. I spoke to them about the darkness of war. I spoke about Hitler's dastardly edict, ordering his commanding officers to execute any and all allied soldiers captured behind enemy lines.[note 2] I spoke of the sad story of the sixteen Italian-Americans, sons of Italian immigrants, who were captured when they landed in Northern Italy behind enemy lines. They were betrayed by Italian Fascists, turned over to the Nazis, and executed forty-eight hours later. We trained those boys at Bari. They were my friends.

I concluded by saying that none of our Americans were betrayed by the Greeks during our long combat behind enemy lines in Nazi occupied Greece.

This, also, has been a motivation for me to write my memoirs: to make sure that I express our gratitude to those people of Greece for their courage. Greek civilians were murdered one after the other by the Nazis in retribution because of the resistance; but not one of our American boys was betrayed by the Greeks.[note 3]

We would recall only the good times whenever the "California Five" would get together in civilian life — the five of us from California in our Greek/USOG; and especially, Perry Phillips, Alex Phillips, and I. We would remember especially the wonderful hospitality of the Greek-Americans in the Greek Orthodox communities and parishes in so many locations of the USA where we soldier-boys would stop during our assignments. I am glad to recall this, too, for posterity.

I've written and spoken only to make sure that the courage is remembered, but never to glamorize war. And with these words, I sign off.


Notes

[Skip the Note]

  1. Editor's Note. For the VA benefits that he receives today, the designation "100%" is total, and it is allowing him to live an independent life in this final years; but he has actually been classed with two 100% disabilities, each for a different injury, and a further 20% for yet another injury, all of them war zone injuries sustained during US military service in WW2 and not acknowledged until the year 2014.
  2. See in these memoirs: Appendix, Against Hitler's Edict, Not one American USOG was betrayed by the Greeks.
  3. See in these memoirs: Appendix, "Against Hitler's Edict: Not one American USOG was betrayed by the Greeks".
     
    The OSS records also reflect this as they give an account of only one fatality (which occurred during a raid) but no other losses among us in Greece:

    "Casualties among Americans:
    "Despite great number of engagements with the enemy, Company C. sustained very light casualties. One enlisted man was killed during an attempted attack on a rail line; one officer was wounded in the same engagement; twenty four enlisted men were wounded; one officer was injured by a fall; one enlisted man was injured by a fall."

    U.S. National Archives, Greek U.S. Operational Groups, Operations in Greece 1944, pp. 14-17 (report filed at OSS Headquarters, 24 December 1944)

    That was all, no more, according to the OSS report. It was filed at the end of December 1944, more than a month after our missions and after the disbanding of our battalion.



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