World War II Air Force veteran Major Richard Olson never discussed his military service with his son, Dick Olson.
“I didn’t have much time to ask these questions while he was home,” Dick, a Westminster resident, told the Denver Post in an interview. “He was a distant father, and I imagine a lot of that came from what happened to him during the war and during his service.”
After Richard died, Dick turned to military archives, old photographs and interviews with surviving members of the crew of his father’s B-24 Liberator plane to learn more about the veteran’s journey. Through his research, Dick discovered that despite being seriously injured in a plane crash before spending months as a prisoner of war, his father had never received a Purple Heart.
Dick worked for seven years to correct the oversight. In April, the Air Force agreed to posthumously award Richard a Purple Heart.
According to his son, the veteran was 22 years old when he enlisted in the US Army Air Corps in February 1941. The service was renamed the US Army Air Forces in June of that year and became the US Air Force in 1947.
“He grew up during the Depression and everything else,” Dick told The Post. “I think he joined because he was looking for three meals a day.”
Thanks to Dick Olson
Richard Olson (bottom center) poses with a B-24 crew after completing a six-hour training flight. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson later became the co-pilot of a B-24 bomber in the 484th Bombardment Group fighter unit. A week after D-Day, his crew, while stationed in southern Italy, was shot down over the Adriatic Sea by eight German fighter planes while en route to Munich.
“They lost an engine and couldn’t keep up with the rest of the bombers, so they had to turn around to go back,” Dick said. “Two of the gunners were killed in the plane. And then the plane was set on fire and I think two more engines were shot out.
“But there was a big fire in the bomb bay, so they had to abandon the plane. They did, and everyone got out, those who were still alive.”
Shell fragments hit Olson’s leg and he suffered a back injury that left him with chronic pain.
Most of the men landed on the Italian coast northeast of Venice, according to conversations Dick had with B-24 crew member John Hassan. He was transferred to two other POW camps and after ten months of incarceration, Olson was liberated from Moosburg, Germany, on April 29, 1945.
“He just said it was a very boring existence and of course they were hungry all the time,” Dick told The Post. “There wasn’t much to do there. They played sports and the American Red Cross provided them with books, board games, sporting goods and other things to keep their morale up.”
Thanks to Dick Olson
Richard Olson’s ID card from his time as a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson spent 16 years in the Air Force after his liberation from the POW camp and became a major, father and husband before leaving the Army in 1961, according to his obituary.
“My parents separated when I was about 13,” Dick said. “He left the household and they divorced.”
After the divorce in 1969, Dick saw Richard three more times before the veteran died of multiple myeloma in 1996.
“I was always interested in his Air Force career. And since he never talked about these other guys, I wanted to find them and talk to them myself,” Dick said.
He made contact with John Hassan, the navigator of Richard’s B-24 crew, in 1997. “When I was going through some of his papers I found a phone number for John and called him up and also started looking for all the other crew members,” Dick said: “I ended up contacting those who were still alive, or relatives of those who had died.
“John was my dad’s best friend on the crew and we became really good friends,” Dick added. “He pretty much had a photographic memory, so I know an awful lot about that crew because of that.”
While investigating the crew, Dick helped the plane’s bomb aimer, Walter Chapman, obtain a Distinguished Flying Cross that he should have received decades earlier.
Like Chapman, Olson also missed out on an award: a Purple Heart for sustaining an injury while on duty.
“Everything else was talked about, like the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals,” Dick said. “All the ribbons and medals he was entitled to, except the Purple Heart.”
Olson’s capture as a prisoner of war immediately after the B-24 crash meant his wounds went undocumented. In 2017, Dick decided to file a claim with the Air Force Board for correction of military records and proof that his father was injured. “I thought to myself, this is unfinished business, I have to see if I can get this thing,” Dick said.
After an extensive file process, the Council for Correction rejected Dick’s request in 2020.
Brian Schenk, founder of Midwest Military and Veterans Law, agreed to work with Dick pro bono and together they sued the Board for Correction in federal court, determined to prove that Olson was injured while on active duty.
“Dick Olson’s father was a war hero and he had such extreme humility that he never sought a Purple Heart himself,” Schenk told the Denver Post.
“I thought to myself, the old man has been through the wringer and he deserves this,” Dick said. “In the letter I wrote on my first application, I told the Air Force that I am doing it for his legacy and for posterity. People need to know that he was injured fighting for his country.”
On April 23, Dick won his case and the Board of Correction agreed to posthumously award Olson a Purple Heart Award.
“He would have been very happy to wear this purple heart,” Dick said. “I think he would have been quite proud of the fight we put in to make this happen.”
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