World War II Air Force veteran Major Richard Olson never discussed his military service with his son, Dick Olson.
“I didn’t have all that much time to be asking these questions while he was at 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 in service.”
After Richard died, Dick turned to military archives, old photos and interviews with the surviving members of his father’s B-24 Liberator airplane crew to learn about the veteran’s journey. Through his research, Dick discovered that his father, despite being seriously injured in a plane crash before enduring months as a prisoner of war, had never received a Purple Heart.
For seven years, Dick worked to correct the oversight. In April, the Air Force agreed to posthumously award Richard a Purple Heart.
The veteran was 22 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in February 1941, according to his son. The service was renamed the U.S. Army Air Forces in June of that year and became the U.S. Air Force in 1947.
“He grew up through the Depression and everything else,” Dick told The Post. “I think he joined because he was looking for three square meals a day.”
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 plane in the 484th Bombardment Group combat unit. A week after D-Day, while stationed in southern Italy, his crew was shot down over the Adriatic Sea by eight German fighter planes while flying to Munich.
“They lost an engine, and they 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 on the plane. And then the plane was set on fire and I think they had two more engines shot out.
“But there was a big fire in the bomb bay so they had to get out of the plane. So they did, and everybody bailed out, the ones that were still alive.”
Shell fragments struck Olson’s leg and he sustained a back injury that left him with chronic pain.
Most of the men landed on the Italian coastline 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 10 months of incarceration, Olson was liberated on April 29, 1945, from Moosburg, Germany.
“He just said it was a very dull existence and of course they were hungry all the time,” Dick told The Post. “There was not a whole lot to do there. They played sports and the American Red Cross supplied them with books and boardgames and sporting equipment and different things to keep their morale up.”
Richard Olson’s identification card from his time as a POW in Stalag Luft III. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson stayed in the Air Force for 16 years after his liberation from the POW camp and became a major, father and husband before leaving the military in 1961, according to his obituary.
“My parents split when I was about 13,” Dick said. “He moved away from the household and they got divorced.”
After the divorce in 1969, Dick saw Richard three more times before the veteran passed away in 1996 from multiple myeloma.
“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 connected with John Hassan, the navigator in Richard’s B-24 crew, in 1997. “Going through some of his papers, I found a phone number for John and called him up and started looking for all the other crew members also,” Dick said, “I eventually did make contact with the ones that were living or family members for the ones who had passed away.
“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 that’s how I know an awful lot about that crew.”
While researching the crew, Dick helped the plane’s bombardier, Walter Chapman, get a Distinguished Flying Cross he should have been awarded decades prior.
Like Chapman, Olson was also missing an award: a Purple Heart for sustaining an injury while in the line of duty.
“There was mention of everything else, like the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals,” Dick said. “All the ribbons and medals that he was entitled to, except for the Purple Heart.”
A collection of medals, honors and other items made by Dick Olson for his late father WWII veteran Major Richard Olson at his home in Westminster, Colorado, on Jun 19, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Olson’s capture as a POW right 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 prove that his father had been injured. “I thought to myself, this is unfinished business, I’ve got to see if I can get this thing,” Dick said.
After an extensive filing process, the Board for Correction rejected Dick’s request in 2020.
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Brian Schenk, founder of Midwest Military and Veterans Law, agreed to work with Dick pro bono and together, they took the Board for Correction to federal court, determined to prove that Olson had been injured during active duty.
“Dick Olson’s father was a war hero and he had such extreme humility that he himself never sought a Purple Heart,” Schenk told the Denver Post.
“I thought to myself, the old man went through the wringer, and he deserves to have this,” Dick said. “I told the Air Force in the letter that I wrote with my first application that I’m doing it for his legacy and for posterity. People should know that he was injured fighting for his country.”
On April 23, Dick won his case and the Board for Correction agreed to posthumously grant Olson a Purple Heart Award.
“He would have been real happy to wear this purple heart,” Dick said. “I think he would have been pretty proud of the fight we put up to make this happen.”
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