Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard “Dick” Cole, the last surviving member of World War II’s Doolittle Raiders, died Tuesday in Texas at the age of 103.
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The president of the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Association told The Air Force Times that Cole died in San Antonio on Tuesday morning with his son and daughter by his side.
Cole, originally from Dayton, Ohio, was mission commander Jimmy Doolittle’s co-pilot in the 1942 bombing attack less than five months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The bold raid on Japan is credited with providing the United States with a morale boost and helping turn the tide of the war in the Pacific.
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.