Last of the Doolittle Raiders has passed

Richard "Dick" Cole didn't just have a front-row seat to history. On April 18th 1942 -- just four months after Pearl Harbor -- he sat next to Jimmy Doolittle as 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers lumbered down the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) to begin a mission that ended in a huge morale boost for the United States.
Eighty gallant men volunteered for that successful mission -- which turned out to be a one-way attack -- vengeance for Japan's strike on Hawaii that crippled the US Navy fleet and left 2,403 dead.

Cole, the last surviving Doolittle Raider, died Tuesday in San Antonio, the US Air Force announced. He was 103. "Lt. Col. Dick Cole reunited with the Doolittle Raiders in the clear blue skies today," said Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson. His son, Rich, and daughter, Cindy Chal, were at his side, said Tom Casey, president of the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Association. Their father will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Casey said.






The crew of the lead aircraft included (from left): navigator Lt. Henry Potter, pilot Lt. Col. James Doolittle, bombardier Staff Sgt. Fred Braemer, co-pilot Lt. Richard Cole and engineer/gunner Staff Sgt. Paul Leonard.

CA-35:
Thanks for such a great reminder and your pictures helped my memory take a longer and more earnest journey.

Thanks, CA-35.

When I look at Lt. Col. Cole's face (as an elderly gentleman), I also see the face of my 'honorary' Dad, James L. Gentry.
'Mr. G' was sitting in a B-25 Mitchell in California at the end of the war on a different mission, waiting to fly across the Pacific and join in the battle that never was, the Invasion of Japan.

Both men gone now. God bless them.

Thanks for posting that. A real superhero, not a Hollywood one.
Unfortunately, we’re witnessing the passing of the last of that tough generation who shook off the depression and stepped ino the horror of WW 2. Bon voyage, Colonel.

A true American hero. Thanks for posting.

Never forget.

NEWSMAX has had a documentary from 2015 in rotation for about a year now:
Doolittle's Raiders: A Final Toast
"The bottle of 1896 Hennessy Cognac was uncorked in front of hundreds of people.
The surviving World War II veterans from one of history’s greatest military missions were about to raise their silver goblets one last time ending a decades long tradition.
It was time for the veterans to hold this final toast. They could wait no longer. Their numbers had dwindled to just a few."
The upside down goblets in the case are the Raiders who had passed on:



One thing that always struck me about descriptions of the mission was the myth that the takeoff from the carrier was difficult, when photos and newsreel footage showed 'em literally hopping into the air:

IIRC Cole himself recounts in that documentary that the carrier's 23-knot launch speed combined with +20-knot wind speed gave 'em over 40 knots of effective take-off speed before they even started rolling on the deck.
In any case they'd already tested and knew it could be done:
https://b-25history.org/doolittle/planning.htm
You can see pretty graphically here, at about 1:50, they were already airborne before they even cleared the end of the deck:

Sometimes the truth is more incredible than the myth.

Some of you might find this interesting: