Strange journey of 'Little' Olson

Henry Olson was a crew chief in the 3rd Squadron Hell's Angels. He was a small man and a skinny one, so of course he was nicknamed "Little Olson" to distinguish him from the squadron leader. At left is his AVG identification photo, taken at Toungoo, Burma, in the late summer or fall of 1941. Though he looks much older, Olson was about 24 when the picture was taken.

As with most of the ground crewmen, he isn't much mentioned in the AVG histories, except for the great raid on Magwe in April 1942. As Fritz Wolf told the story in a wartime magazine, an RAF Hurricane crash-landed on the airfield in the middle of the raid: "The pilot looked trapped for sure. But Crew Chiefs Johnny Fauth and little [Henry] Olson jumped out of their shelters and rushed to the wreckage, breaking through and rescuing the RAF pilot from the burning mass." Olson drove the injured pilot off the field in a jeep, but Fauth was hit by a Japanese machine-gun bullet and then caught in the explosion of a bomb, causing injuries from which he died that night.

Later, in the fall of Lashio, Olson drove Olga Greenlaw to safety at Loiwing, on one occasion shooting out the tires of a Chinese truck that tried to run them off the road. He served to the AVG's disbandment, perhaps as late as July 4. Olga recalled that he was among the pilots and crew who "drifted in" the AVG office that Harvey Greenlaw ran in Delhi. Presumably he was one of the hundred or so AVGs who took passage on Mariposa, arriving at New York harbor on August 22, 1942.

His story now takes a strange twist: he went home to Minnesota, where he was recruited to run for Congress as a ex-Flying Tigers pilot. Wrote Time magazine in its inimitable style (7 Sep 1942): "Slender, underweight (132 lb.), blue-eyed Henry L. Olson, 25, onetime farm boy, was invalided home last summer--weighing 112 pounds. He had been with the A.V.G. in Burma and China nearly a year, was twice shot down. He is Democratic candidate for Congress from the Ninth District--a vast area of wheatfields, Indian reservations, woods, lakes, muskeg."

He did some campaigning by air, though he may not have been the actual pilot of the Stinson light aircraft shown in Life magazine (24 Aug 1942). The caption however was sure of his flight status as a Tiger: "Henry L. Olson, 25, was a member of the A.V.G.'s Third Pursuit Squadron.... was shot down twice and wounded in air battles over Burma and China. He carried a piece of Jap shrapnel in his knee until he got back to a Miami hospital on July 15. Then he went home to fish and rest on his father's Minnesota farm. Leading Democrats persuaded him to run for Congress in the Ninth District, now represented by a Farmer-Labor Isolationist. (Primary date: September 8.) Olson is doing some campaigning by plane..., thinks Congress could use a man who has fought in the air over China. He also wants to prove that once-isolationist Minnesota is 'all out for the war effort.'"

Olson didn't get the nomination, so he rejoined the U.S. Army. He was assigned to the 368th Fighter Group, which was activated in June 1943 at Westover Field, Mass., then moved to Farmingdale, N.Y., before shipping overseas. According to Timothy Grace (whose father was a pilot in the 368th, and who wrote a book about it), Olson was crew chief for the group commander, Col Gil Meyers, who evidently finagled a field commission for him. 'Meyers ... took him over to England as the 396th [Squadron] engineering officer,' Dr Grace explains. The group was based at Chilbolton, England, where without any formal pilot training Olson was allowed to fly 'slow time' on P-47 Thunderbolts, breaking in their engines before they were flown in combat. In this fashion, he earned his wings.

Here are the 'Thunder Bums' of the of the 396th Fighter Squadron, with Olson the small guy in the ball cap, at right in the front row. He continued to embroider his past, claiming to have been an occasional ferry pilot for the American Volunteer Group--and to have been elected to Congress! He hadn't cared for the Washington scene, he told his USAAF buddies, so had resigned to join the Army. Again, there was a Clarence Olson in the squadron, so the former crew chief was again distinguished by the nickname of "Little."

'To prove his combat readiness,' Dr Grace goes on, '... he took off on his own from Chilbolton, flew to Calaise [on the coast of France] and did some strafing at the V-1 rocket sites being built. Somehow he avoided British flak gunners, who did not like unscheduled flight over the coast.... A crew chief pulled his gun cameras before the [Military Polioce] could get to them for evidence to use against him.... [The group commander] somehow managed to smooth it over. Because of his initiative, Meyers made him the first replacement pilot for the 396th.'

As the story is told, Olson's Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was named Johnny Fauth in honor of the buddy killed at Magwe. He was officially credited with 1.5 victories, including the one that inspired the photograph at the top of the page. Possibly he scored another on October 20, 1944, an action for which Olson received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second-highest award for valor. Olson was one of only 762 men of the USAAF to earn the DSC in World War II. He had indeed become the heroic pilot he'd earlier pretended to be.

'The mission began with strafing at the town of Bergstein,' says Dr Grace. 'They were jumped by 20 FW 190s after expending fuel and ammo. I can tell you from dad and others on that mission, his DSC was not for victories, but for repeated gallant efforts to chase 190s off the tails of fellow pilots.... Olson's A/C was badly damaged and he belly-landed at Namur. [According to] with my dad and others who flew with him I've talked to, he was really admired.'