Aviation museum mourns passing of Last Doolittle Raider

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ)- The Aviation Museum of Kentucky says they are mourning the loss a true hero and prime example of “the greatest generation” with the passing of Richard “Dick” Cole, the last survivor of the April 18, 1942 bombing raid on Japan called “The Doolittle Raid”.

Cole passed away April 9, at the age of 103 in San Antonio. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Cole had a career in the Army Air Corps that later became the US Air Force in 1947.  He served from 1940 until retiring in 1966.  Cole was sitting in a B-25 bomber across from Col. James Doolittle, the commander of the mission, when they launched in 1942 from the rocking deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. The first of sixteen planes that lifted away from the Hornet, Doolittle, Cole and their crew along with the other Raiders went on to strike several targets in Japan.  The surprise attack achieved a psychological victory and changed enemy air defense procedures from that moment onward.

Cole was an acquaintance of several individuals affiliated with the Aviation Museum of Kentucky.  Dr. George Gumbert, a founder of the Aviation Roundtable that expanded into the aviation museum at Blue Grass Airport, counted Cole as a friend.  Others came to know Cole through historical aviation events and the speaking tours that Cole conducted in his retirement years.

In 1995, when the museum officially opened at Blue Grass Airport, Cole was among the Raiders who gathered in a reunion to mark the opening of the facility.  Cole was also present for the 2013 service honoring Tom Griffin, another Raider who was interred in Cincinnati.  An artifact from Griffin survived the 1942 mission and is in the museum’s collection.