A polio bug in China prevented Harvey Larsen's return home.

Harvey A. Larsen, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Atwill H. Larsen, was born in Monterey County, California on June 8, 1925. The family lived in in the Interlaken district of the Pajaro Valley, where Harvey attended local elementary schools. He studied at Watsonville High School for three years. In June 1943 he left high school to work for the Levi Zentner Company in Watsonville.

Harvey Larsen enlisted in the Army Air Force on December 15, 1943, and completed his basic training at Shepherd Field, Texas. The following year he was sent to a cargo carrier command unit at Malden Army Airfield in Missouri. In March 1945, he was serving at Fort Wayne, Indiana, when his unit received orders sending them to India.

In June 1945, Sgt. Larsen was transferred to Burma where he served as a crew chief on a C-47 aircraft in a combat cargo squadron. Later in the year he was transferred to a cargo plane unit operating out of China. In the middle of November 1945, while serving in China, Sergeant Harvey A. Larsen contracted an acute form of polio that took his life. The date of his death and the location of his remains have not been identified.

(NARA2; WRP November 24, 1945 1:7; Photo-WHS)