John Eric Olson (November 27, 1917 – October 2, 2012) was a U.S. Army Colonel, West Point graduate (class of 1939), and one of the last surviving officers of the Bataan Death March of World War II.

He was also a military historian and author of three books, as well as numerous magazine articles dealing primarily with his experiences as a prisoner of war in the Philippines and in Japan from 1942 to 1945.

After graduating from high school, he attended Marion Military Academy (Alabama) for a year before earning a Congressional appointment to West Point.

Shortly before leaving Camp O'Donnell, he and another prisoner were given a sack of cement and ordered to create a monument to the soldiers who died on the Bataan Peninsula.

Thirty years later Olson headed up an effort that managed to raise enough funds to bring the cross to the U.S. where it is now on display at the National Prisoner of War Museum, Andersonville, Georgia.

After his second retirement, he set to work fulfilling the vow he had made after World War II to eventually write a book about his Camp O'Donnell experiences.