Us Official Photographs

1st Lt Henry Olson with P-47

Had not two pursuing German fighter pilots exhausted their patience--or gasoline supply--two minutes too soon, 1st Lt. Henry L. Olson, a 9th AF Republic P-47 fighter-bomber pilot from Beltrami, Minn., might not have been able to pose for this picture. Lt. Olson, after shooting down a German ME 109, had his plane damaged and his goggled blasted off by an enemy shell passing through the cockpit and two Germans on his tail. The enemy turned back two minutes before the Thunderbolt failed, permitting Lt. Olson to belly land the plane in less than 100 feet of a Belgian meadow, where he would have been an easy target if the Germans had continued the chase.