Ships
- USS Worden (DD-352) Captain, 10 December 1935 – 29 February 1936
Clarence Edward Olsen was born on 7 October 1899 and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1920. He served in the fleet through the years between the world wars and through the Second World War, and he later rose to rear admiral.
On 10 December 1935, while a lieutenant, he became commanding officer of the destroyer Worden (DD-352). The Farragut-class ship had been built at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, launched on 27 October 1934, and commissioned at Bremerton on 15 January 1935 under Robert Earle Kerr. During that first year she completed a shakedown from the California coast to Central America and the Panama Canal, visited Washington, D.C., and then joined the Pacific Fleet for duty based at San Diego.
Olsen remained in Worden until 29 February 1936, when Henry Bryan Broadfoot relieved him. The destroyer stayed in the Pacific under Julian DuBois Wilson, Lunsford Yandell Mason, and Ransom Kirby Davis. In October 1939 her base shifted from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.
William Grady Pogue took command in April 1941 and was still aboard when the Pacific war opened. Worden was at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, screened carriers at Midway, and operated off Guadalcanal, including the landings in early August 1942 and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons later that month. On 12 January 1943, while supporting the occupation of Amchitka in the Aleutians, she grounded on a rock in Constantine Harbor, lost power, and broke up in the surf. Fourteen men drowned. The wreck was a total loss, and the Navy struck her name from the list on 22 December 1944. She received four battle stars for her wartime service.
After leaving the destroyer, Olsen advanced to commander on 1 July 1940 and to temporary captain on 20 June 1942. He commanded the heavy cruiser Baltimore (CA-68) from 11 August 1945 to 3 May 1946, a period that ran from the final days of the Pacific war into the first year of peace. He died in 1971.