Air Force Raises a Last Glass to the Final Doolittle Raider
The children of Lt. Col. Dick Cole say farewell to the last of 80 men who flew the historic 1942 mission.
TARA COPP | APRIL 18, 2022 04:05 PM ET
AIR FORCE ARMY
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla.—Eighty years ago, on April 18, 1942, sixteen B-25B Mitchell bombers heavy with fuel, munitions, and little else launched off the flight deck of the USS Hornet on a one-way mission to Tokyo.
The U.S. Army Air Forces’ Doolittle Raiders became instant heroes, energizing a country still reeling from Pearl Harbor. Eighty men flew the secret mission; 61 survived the war. In 1946, they held their first reunion, sharing a bottle of 1896 Hennessy VS cognac in honor of the birth year of mission leader Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle.
Every Doolittle Raider had a silver goblet engraved with his name. At the annual reunions that followed, survivors would raise a toast of Hennessy to Raiders who’d passed the year before, and then turn those Raiders’ goblets upside-down in their velvet-lined case.
Today, the final goblet was turned.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/04/air-force-raises-last-glass-final-doolittle-raider/365796/
