Marvin Olsen grew up on his parents’ farm in the Arkansas River Valley of southern Colorado and graduated from high school in 1938. This was during the period when Japan and Germany were aggressively overrunning other nations in the Pacific and Europe and it was the prelude to war with America.
Olsen joined the Army Air Force. In Hawaii, he was trained as an aircraft mechanic and was assigned to a ground maintenance crew at Hickam Field, the airfield that adjoins Pearl Harbor.
On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Olsen and several friends had just finished breakfast and were standing in front of their barracks when they saw the first wave of Japanese dive bombers wreak havoc on the Navy ships in Pearl Harbor.
Then a second wave of dive bombers flew across and dropped bombs on the airfield. Olsen and the others ran to a hanger for cover, but the hangar was struck, too. The first bomb penetrated the hanger. A second bomb killed the man standing next to Olsen. He was wounded, and spent two months in a hospital. He still carries some shrapnel in him.
He served on the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides and then in Guadalcanal during the time the battle for the island was still being fought. There, he contracted malaria and was sent back to the United States.
After recovering, Olsen was trained as a crew chief on the new B29s, the long-range bombers. Since he had already been in combat, he was given the option to stay out of harm’s way in the U.S. Instead, Olsen volunteered for another tour of duty in the combat zone.
Olsen’s squadron of B-29s was sent to a base in India and on to a forward base at Chengtu, China, built with the cooperation of Gen. Chiang Kai Shek.
On Aug. 20, 1944, Olsen participated in the first daylight mission over Japan. He witnessed the destruction of many Japanese ports and cities.
Olsen was discharged in June 1945. During his tour of service, he was awarded the Purple Heart (Pearl Harbor), Legion of Merit (Guadalcanal), Air Medal (China, Burma and India) and the Distinguished Flying Cross (China, Burma and India).
After the war, Olsen worked at the United Airlines Flight Center in Denver.
He is now 95.
Robert Duensing (rd5280@hotmail.com) retired as a manager of simulator maintenance at the United Airlines Flight Center.
