Dick Cole — Last of the Doolittle Raiders
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By David Lauterborn
7/27/2016 • Military History, MH Interviews
On April 18, 1942, little more than four months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 80 airmen in 16 modified North American B-25B Mitchell bombers lifted off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet in the northwest Pacific bound for targets in Japan. The operation marked the first Allied retaliatory strike on the Japanese Home Islands. To plan the daring mission U.S. Army Air Forces Lt. Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold had tapped Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, the famed air racer, test pilot and aeronautical engineer. Doolittle piloted the lead plane from Hornet. His co-pilot was 26-year-old Lieutenant Richard E. “Dick” Cole. Neither Doolittle nor any of his men had flown a single combat mission. With the passing of retired USAAF Staff Sergeant David Thatcher on June 22, 2016, Cole, a 100-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, is now the last of the famed Doolittle Raiders. He recently spoke with Military History about the bold raid and its surprising aftermath.
We were two days at sea, and the PA system alerted everybody: ‘This force is bound for Tokyo’
http://www.historynet.com/dick-cole-last-of-the-doolittle-raiders.htm
