What many do NOT know is that Olympus was successful in garnering some Press Corp contracts. In most of those cases where the Press Corp contracts involved the distribution of OM bodies to Press Corp photographers who had been using NIKON, those photographers pretty thoroughly "dispatched" the Olympus bodies as not being robust enough for Press Corp duty and put down the OM bodies and picked up with their use of the NIKON bodies.
I can surely believe that they would not stand up to daily and abusive Press Corp duty and/or battlefield use.
I've heard this story repeated many times. And we all know what happens to stories that are repeated many times -- they change and develop a life of their own. While I have no personal knowledge of whether the story as told above is accurate at all or to what extent, it bears emphasis that even assuming that OM cameras were rejected by press corps photographers used to using Nikons, the reason could easily have been due to the fact that the control layout (especially the shutter speed dial around the lens mount) of the OM-1 was different than most other cameras, as well as a good old fashioned (and not unreasonable) bias towards using what is familiar. This bias, of course, affects one's perceptions of the relative merits of what is familiar versus what is unfamiliar.
Again, I cannot definitively state whether OM cameras are tougher than Nikons or not. However, I can definitively state the following:
1. No camera -- including any model Nikon -- is anywhere close to indestructible or free of breakdowns. A simple visit to camera repair facilities (including my multiple visits years ago to Marty Forscher's Professional Camera Repair for CLA work) reveals that cameras of all different brands (including "Pro" models like the Nikon F, F2, etc.) do indeed breakdown and need repairs. Do you think Sover Wong (famous Nikon F2 repairman) would still be in business if Nikon F2 camera were as problem free as some like to fantasize about? Do you think you can expose any non-underwater camera to saltwater or bury it in sand and not have a problem? Do you think that any camera can suffer multiple falls onto concrete without damaging its functionality (as opposed to being lucky on a single fall where the camera lands just the right way)? People who think otherwise are just deluding themselves. Cameras are precision instruments and have to be taken care of accordingly if you want them to last.
2. My personal experience with using Nikon FM, FM2, FE and FE2 cameras yielded several experiences where they had shutter problems involving popped shutter rivets or dented/bent shutter blades. This is not to say that they are not fine cameras; it just indicates that metal shutters can be easily damaged -- particularly if something touches them, while you can poke an OM camera's cloth focal plane shutter in a bit with your finger with no ill effect.
3. OM cameras (at least the single digit OMs) are at least reasonably durable under adverse conditions. This, of course, is not guarantee that yours won't breakdown -- especially given how old they are. But having used them extensively for about 40 years in some bad conditions, I can say that my problems have been fairly rare, mostly involving temporary or repairable electrical contact issues, without any situations where the camera was rendered outright unable to take a photograph. The most common problem I have encountered is being limited to a single mechanical shutter speed where the camera batteries froze when I was using an electronic OM. Since I now only use a mechanical OM-1 in sub-freezing weather, that is not a problem.
4. Most mid-level or higher camera SLR models of any reputable camera brand (such as Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta, Leica, etc) will be at least reasonably durable if cared for properly, just as the overwhelming bulk of lenses made since the 1960's will be sufficiently sharp if they have been properly taken care of and if you know what you are doing.
