Kenneth Sharp Olson was born on November 6, 1898, in Kemmerer, Lincoln County, Wyoming. He was the son of George F. Olson. He was married to Cathryn Olson. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1919, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, after which the entire class embarked on a four-month tour of European battlefields at the close of World War I. Upon returning to the United States, Col. Olson was assigned to Panama, where he served for three years before being transferred to Fort Warren, Wyoming, and later to Fort Douglas, where he spent several years as an instructor for reserve officers.

During World War II, Olson was assigned to the Visayan-Mindanao Force in the Philippines as a Lieutenant Colonel. After the fall of Bataan, LTC Olson was taken prisoner by the Japanese and held at PW Camp #2 in Davao, Mindanao. In December 1944, he was among the 1,621 Allied POWs placed aboard the Japanese Oryoku Maru. He survived the sinking at Subic Bay and transfer to the Enoura Maru, which was bombed at Takao, Formosa, on January 9, 1945. Mortally wounded, Olson was moved to the Brazil Maru, where he died at sea on January 24, 1945.

Olson's name is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Capital District, National Capital Region, Philippines.

Source of information: weremember.abmc.gov, www.findagrave.com