I thought about putting this in the existing death thread but it would dishonor a true hero like Lt. Col Richard Cole to lump him with d list celebrities and their unknown family members.

https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/201904...ses-at-103

Quote:Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. “Dick” Cole, the last living connection to a daring World War II bombing mission and a frequent visitor to Northwest Florida, died Tuesday in Texas at the age of 103. A memorial service is planned for Randolph Air Force Base in Texas with interment later at Arlington National Cemetery.

Cole was among the 80 Army Air Corps airmen who volunteered for the Doolittle Raiders, a team led by then-Lt. Col. James Doolittle to strike Japan after the Japanese laid waste to American naval power in an attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The story of the Doolittle Raiders is woven tightly into the fabric of this area. For a little more than two weeks in March 1942, they trained at what was then Eglin Field. Later, flying 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet on April 18, 1942, the Doolittle Raiders had targets in five Japanese cities. Each plane carried four 500-pound bombs, and had been stripped of extraneous equipment to accommodate additional fuel.

While the damage inflicted by the raid was slight, it was considered a success, showing Japan was not beyond the reach of American air power.

Cole was consistently humble about his role in the raid, which included serving as Doolittle’s co-pilot.

“I don’t think that the Raiders should be remembered any more than the millions of other people who took part in World War II,” Cole said during a 2018 interview at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base. Seven of the Doolittle Raiders lost their lives during the mission, either as the result of crashes, or while parachuting from their aircraft, or at the hands of the Japanese.

Cole was among the airmen who had to bail out of the B-25s after the raid, while the aircraft were en route for planned landings in China. Asked in the 2018 interview about his sharpest memory of the raid, Cole had a quick response.

“The thing I remember most is my parachute opening,” he joked.

Quote:Cole’s last visit to this area came last month, when he visited Hurlburt Field, headquarters of Air Force Special Operations Command, for a 75th anniversary commemoration of Operation Thursday. Another piece of World War II history in which Cole was involved, the 1944 operation saw American air pioneers working alongside British special operations soldiers to extract British soldiers from the forests of Burma. The operation marked the birth of Air Commandos as part of the U.S. military.

Cole became the last surviving Doolittle Raider in 2016, after Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, an engineer and gunner on the mission, died in Montana at the age of 94.

(04-09-2019 08:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  I thought about putting this in the existing death thread but it would dishonor a true hero like Lt. Col Richard Cole to lump him with d list celebrities and their unknown family members.

https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/201904...ses-at-103

Quote:Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. “Dick” Cole, the last living connection to a daring World War II bombing mission and a frequent visitor to Northwest Florida, died Tuesday in Texas at the age of 103. A memorial service is planned for Randolph Air Force Base in Texas with interment later at Arlington National Cemetery.

Cole was among the 80 Army Air Corps airmen who volunteered for the Doolittle Raiders, a team led by then-Lt. Col. James Doolittle to strike Japan after the Japanese laid waste to American naval power in an attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The story of the Doolittle Raiders is woven tightly into the fabric of this area. For a little more than two weeks in March 1942, they trained at what was then Eglin Field. Later, flying 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet on April 18, 1942, the Doolittle Raiders had targets in five Japanese cities. Each plane carried four 500-pound bombs, and had been stripped of extraneous equipment to accommodate additional fuel.

While the damage inflicted by the raid was slight, it was considered a success, showing Japan was not beyond the reach of American air power.

Cole was consistently humble about his role in the raid, which included serving as Doolittle’s co-pilot.

“I don’t think that the Raiders should be remembered any more than the millions of other people who took part in World War II,” Cole said during a 2018 interview at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base. Seven of the Doolittle Raiders lost their lives during the mission, either as the result of crashes, or while parachuting from their aircraft, or at the hands of the Japanese.

Cole was among the airmen who had to bail out of the B-25s after the raid, while the aircraft were en route for planned landings in China. Asked in the 2018 interview about his sharpest memory of the raid, Cole had a quick response.

“The thing I remember most is my parachute opening,” he joked.

Quote:Cole’s last visit to this area came last month, when he visited Hurlburt Field, headquarters of Air Force Special Operations Command, for a 75th anniversary commemoration of Operation Thursday. Another piece of World War II history in which Cole was involved, the 1944 operation saw American air pioneers working alongside British special operations soldiers to extract British soldiers from the forests of Burma. The operation marked the birth of Air Commandos as part of the U.S. military.

Cole became the last surviving Doolittle Raider in 2016, after Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, an engineer and gunner on the mission, died in Montana at the age of 94.

RIP. We don't make many men like that these days.

The Greatest Generation

https://youtu.be/-YQmkjpP6q8

Truly the Greatest Generation. My father fought in WWII. Was at Omaha Beach on D-Day.He was my personal hero and I still miss him every day of my life.

(04-09-2019 08:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  I thought about putting this in the existing death thread but it would dishonor a true hero like Lt. Col Richard Cole to lump him with d list celebrities and their unknown family members.

https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/201904...ses-at-103

Quote:Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. “Dick” Cole, the last living connection to a daring World War II bombing mission and a frequent visitor to Northwest Florida, died Tuesday in Texas at the age of 103. A memorial service is planned for Randolph Air Force Base in Texas with interment later at Arlington National Cemetery.

Cole was among the 80 Army Air Corps airmen who volunteered for the Doolittle Raiders, a team led by then-Lt. Col. James Doolittle to strike Japan after the Japanese laid waste to American naval power in an attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The story of the Doolittle Raiders is woven tightly into the fabric of this area. For a little more than two weeks in March 1942, they trained at what was then Eglin Field. Later, flying 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet on April 18, 1942, the Doolittle Raiders had targets in five Japanese cities. Each plane carried four 500-pound bombs, and had been stripped of extraneous equipment to accommodate additional fuel.

While the damage inflicted by the raid was slight, it was considered a success, showing Japan was not beyond the reach of American air power.

Cole was consistently humble about his role in the raid, which included serving as Doolittle’s co-pilot.

“I don’t think that the Raiders should be remembered any more than the millions of other people who took part in World War II,” Cole said during a 2018 interview at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base. Seven of the Doolittle Raiders lost their lives during the mission, either as the result of crashes, or while parachuting from their aircraft, or at the hands of the Japanese.

Cole was among the airmen who had to bail out of the B-25s after the raid, while the aircraft were en route for planned landings in China. Asked in the 2018 interview about his sharpest memory of the raid, Cole had a quick response.

“The thing I remember most is my parachute opening,” he joked.

Quote:Cole’s last visit to this area came last month, when he visited Hurlburt Field, headquarters of Air Force Special Operations Command, for a 75th anniversary commemoration of Operation Thursday. Another piece of World War II history in which Cole was involved, the 1944 operation saw American air pioneers working alongside British special operations soldiers to extract British soldiers from the forests of Burma. The operation marked the birth of Air Commandos as part of the U.S. military.

Cole became the last surviving Doolittle Raider in 2016, after Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, an engineer and gunner on the mission, died in Montana at the age of 94.

The planes also were stripped of some of their defensive guns to limit the weight at take off.

What a ballsy bunch of guys! Well done and God's speed!

(04-09-2019 10:50 PM)usmbacker Wrote:  Truly the Greatest Generation. My father fought in WWII. Was at Omaha Beach on D-Day.He was my personal hero and I still miss him every day of my life.

Mine was a B-24 pilot in the 15th Army Air Corps. He flew the later Ploiesti raids, out of the heel of Italy. He did not get over in time for Operation Tidal Wave, the attack out of North Africa that was the single highest casualty operation of WWII. Ploiesti was the Nazis' largest oil refinery, in Romania. If it could be destroyed, the Wehrmacht could be deprived of sufficient fuel to operate. We knew that, so it was a recurring high priority mission. The Germans knew it too, so they defended it with everything they had. Southern Italy was not as long a haul as North Africa, so casualties were not as high as Tidal Wave, but they were still high. I have read that the combined Ploiesti missions had the highest casualty rate of any operation in WWII. I think Tidal Wave pushes the needle up a bit, but I don't think any of them were cakewalks.

He got in his 50 missions, and was back in the US, transitioning to B-25s to fly the invasion of Japan, when Truman dropped the bomb. He got out, came home, and married his high school sweetheart (my mom). Several years ago, after he had passed, my son and I took my mom to Hiroshima, where she told the whole story. Hiroshima is an emotional enough experience, but that kind of took it to a new level.

My grandfathers weren't on the front lines. One was in Puerto Rico repairing those planes. The other was a cook. But he was close enough, being in North Africa, Italy and the South of France before going over to Japan for the occupation.

(04-10-2019 08:12 AM)bullet Wrote:  My grandfathers weren't on the front lines. One was in Puerto Rico repairing those planes. The other was a cook. But he was close enough, being in North Africa, Italy and the South of France before going over to Japan for the occupation.

Every single contribution mattered.

It's like when I was on USS Virgo (AE-30). We were a supply ship. We went into Subic, loaded up with bombs and bullets, out to Yankee Station to transfer the bombs to whatever carrier was in its 12-hour non-launch cycle, then the rest to the "dedicated AOE" that kept up constant resupply to both carriers on rotation, then down to the gun lines to transfer the bullets to whatever destroyers and cruisers needed them. We didn't fire a shot, and in fact were not even allowed in close enough to risk being shot at, because, with our load of bombs and bullets, taking a hit could have made us go up in an explosion bigger than Hiroshima. During those underway replenishments (unreps), several of the destroyer skippers used to tell us over the loudspeakers just what they had been doing, and were going to do, with the bullets we transferred to them. It gave us something of a feeling of ownership for what was going on. Keep in mind, for me this was my 1/C Mid cruise, supposedly a "training cruise" and I was back to school in the fall, but 200 of us got sent to WestPac because there weren't enough ships to train us otherwise.

There were other mids who got closer to the war than I did. I got to know one, from Annapolis, whose cruise assignment was an LST mother ship for patrol boats in the Mekong Delta. His trip to get out to the ship was quite convoluted, including 2 days on an RVN patrol boat where he did not speak the language and they had nothing to eat but fish and rice balls--with chopsticks. Anyway, when he finally reached his "cruise" ship, he was summoned to the captain's cabin immediately. He's thinking, "WTF did I do wrong in my first two minutes on the ship," but when he got there the skipper told him, "We had a fire fight last night. Our First Lieutenant got hit, and we had to MEDEVAC him. I don't have a replacement, so you're our First Lieutenant." FYI in the navy it's not a rank, but a position, basically the officer in charge of the deck operations and boats. By the end of the summer, he was leading boat patrols in the Mekong--quite an answer for the question, "What did you do for your summer?"

That was my first Vietnam experience. My second and last was involvement in Operation End Sweep, the mine clearance operation after the war was over. Neither one involved anything close to combat, and I've always felt a little strange to reflect on how I had it a lot easier than so many of my contemporaries. I also got my undergrad degree on the Navy, and my Masters and J.D. on the GI bill. So when people thank me for my service, I feel that I have to respond, "No, thank you, taxpayers, for a wonderful experience and three degrees."

Had one grandfather that parachuted into the Battle of the Bulge and was captured by the Germans. He ended up a POW for 18 months in a German concentration camp where he survived because he was an artist and would draw pictures of Germans for their wives in exchange for food. He wrote it all out in a journal that my mom has. I've read it. It made me cry to see this 22 year old man's (at that time) reaction to the horrors going on around him. He went on to become a successful chemist and salesman working for Union Carbide but the things he saw haunted him apparently as he struggled with alcoholism which eventually led to cirrhosis of the liver and his death at 68. These men didn't complain or lament their lot in life but too many paid the ultimate price later for the things they witnessed.

Fly high Lt Col Cole. Thanks to him and the rest of your family members for their unselfish acts of bravery and service to us all.

(04-09-2019 11:30 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 08:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  I thought about putting this in the existing death thread but it would dishonor a true hero like Lt. Col Richard Cole to lump him with d list celebrities and their unknown family members.

https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/201904...ses-at-103

Quote:Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. “Dick” Cole, the last living connection to a daring World War II bombing mission and a frequent visitor to Northwest Florida, died Tuesday in Texas at the age of 103. A memorial service is planned for Randolph Air Force Base in Texas with interment later at Arlington National Cemetery.

Cole was among the 80 Army Air Corps airmen who volunteered for the Doolittle Raiders, a team led by then-Lt. Col. James Doolittle to strike Japan after the Japanese laid waste to American naval power in an attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The story of the Doolittle Raiders is woven tightly into the fabric of this area. For a little more than two weeks in March 1942, they trained at what was then Eglin Field. Later, flying 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet on April 18, 1942, the Doolittle Raiders had targets in five Japanese cities. Each plane carried four 500-pound bombs, and had been stripped of extraneous equipment to accommodate additional fuel.

While the damage inflicted by the raid was slight, it was considered a success, showing Japan was not beyond the reach of American air power.

Cole was consistently humble about his role in the raid, which included serving as Doolittle’s co-pilot.

“I don’t think that the Raiders should be remembered any more than the millions of other people who took part in World War II,” Cole said during a 2018 interview at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base. Seven of the Doolittle Raiders lost their lives during the mission, either as the result of crashes, or while parachuting from their aircraft, or at the hands of the Japanese.

Cole was among the airmen who had to bail out of the B-25s after the raid, while the aircraft were en route for planned landings in China. Asked in the 2018 interview about his sharpest memory of the raid, Cole had a quick response.

“The thing I remember most is my parachute opening,” he joked.

Quote:Cole’s last visit to this area came last month, when he visited Hurlburt Field, headquarters of Air Force Special Operations Command, for a 75th anniversary commemoration of Operation Thursday. Another piece of World War II history in which Cole was involved, the 1944 operation saw American air pioneers working alongside British special operations soldiers to extract British soldiers from the forests of Burma. The operation marked the birth of Air Commandos as part of the U.S. military.

Cole became the last surviving Doolittle Raider in 2016, after Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, an engineer and gunner on the mission, died in Montana at the age of 94.

The planes also were stripped of some of their defensive guns to limit the weight at take off.

What a ballsy bunch of guys! Well done and God's speed!

They did a lot of initial training for the mission at what is now Columbia Metropolitan Airport, then Columbia Army Airbase. The scenes in the movie Pearl Harbor where they are trying to get the planes to launch by a certain point would have been done here in SC in real life.

Owl, I used to get a lot of flak from ex-grunts that served in VN and young Marines that didn't even witness the VN war. Their main complaint is that I don't deserve my RV Service Medal and RV Campaign Medal because as they say I never had to dodge bullets. I tell them it's not my fault that I was able to pass the AF entrance exam. That usually shuts them up but if they persist I tell them that million dollar aircraft are more valuable than one GI with a $10 thousand life insurance policy if he gets killed. I know that sounds coarse but reality is a biatch. By the way I served in Takhli and Korat Thailand during the VN War on EB-66s as an aircraft mech.

(04-10-2019 02:15 PM)olliebaba Wrote:  Owl, I used to get a lot of flak from ex-grunts that served in VN and young Marines that didn't even witness the VN war. Their main complaint is that I don't deserve my RV Service Medal and RV Campaign Medal because as they say I never had to dodge bullets. I tell them it's not my fault that I was able to pass the AF entrance exam. That usually shuts them up but if they persist I tell them that million dollar aircraft are more valuable than one GI with a $10 thousand life insurance policy if he gets killed. I know that sounds coarse but reality is a biatch. By the way I served in Takhli and Korat Thailand during the VN War on EB-66s as an aircraft mech.

I never got any flak from anyone else. Mine was kind of self imposed because I realized I had it a lot easier than many. I actually knew only one person whose name is on the wall. I had to go find it when I visited.

The Navy's version of the B-66 was the A-3. We called them "whales" because they were the biggest things that landed on carriers.

(04-10-2019 10:22 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 11:30 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 08:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  I thought about putting this in the existing death thread but it would dishonor a true hero like Lt. Col Richard Cole to lump him with d list celebrities and their unknown family members.

https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/201904...ses-at-103

Quote:Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. “Dick” Cole, the last living connection to a daring World War II bombing mission and a frequent visitor to Northwest Florida, died Tuesday in Texas at the age of 103. A memorial service is planned for Randolph Air Force Base in Texas with interment later at Arlington National Cemetery.

Cole was among the 80 Army Air Corps airmen who volunteered for the Doolittle Raiders, a team led by then-Lt. Col. James Doolittle to strike Japan after the Japanese laid waste to American naval power in an attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The story of the Doolittle Raiders is woven tightly into the fabric of this area. For a little more than two weeks in March 1942, they trained at what was then Eglin Field. Later, flying 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet on April 18, 1942, the Doolittle Raiders had targets in five Japanese cities. Each plane carried four 500-pound bombs, and had been stripped of extraneous equipment to accommodate additional fuel.

While the damage inflicted by the raid was slight, it was considered a success, showing Japan was not beyond the reach of American air power.

Cole was consistently humble about his role in the raid, which included serving as Doolittle’s co-pilot.

“I don’t think that the Raiders should be remembered any more than the millions of other people who took part in World War II,” Cole said during a 2018 interview at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base. Seven of the Doolittle Raiders lost their lives during the mission, either as the result of crashes, or while parachuting from their aircraft, or at the hands of the Japanese.

Cole was among the airmen who had to bail out of the B-25s after the raid, while the aircraft were en route for planned landings in China. Asked in the 2018 interview about his sharpest memory of the raid, Cole had a quick response.

“The thing I remember most is my parachute opening,” he joked.

Quote:Cole’s last visit to this area came last month, when he visited Hurlburt Field, headquarters of Air Force Special Operations Command, for a 75th anniversary commemoration of Operation Thursday. Another piece of World War II history in which Cole was involved, the 1944 operation saw American air pioneers working alongside British special operations soldiers to extract British soldiers from the forests of Burma. The operation marked the birth of Air Commandos as part of the U.S. military.

Cole became the last surviving Doolittle Raider in 2016, after Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, an engineer and gunner on the mission, died in Montana at the age of 94.

The planes also were stripped of some of their defensive guns to limit the weight at take off.

What a ballsy bunch of guys! Well done and God's speed!

They did a lot of initial training for the mission at what is now Columbia Metropolitan Airport, then Columbia Army Airbase. The scenes in the movie Pearl Harbor where they are trying to get the planes to launch by a certain point would have been done here in SC in real life.

That movie was inherently flawed. I've known B17 and Liberator pilots. I can't say that I ever knew anyone who flew B-25's. But one of the ironies of the war was that the Japanese had taken Billy Mitchell's views on the importance of aircraft (and for th navy aircraft carriers) a tad more seriously than we had. We had some really well designed carriers for the era, but our navy at the outset of the war still saw the battleship as the craft around which a fleet was designed. The Japanese had advanced the primary fleet ship to be the carrier. Hitler had a chance to build and launch the Graf Zeppelin which would have been Germany's first aircraft carrier and which might well have been a game changer for the Battle of Britain and hitting the U.S.. He put his money into the Tirpitz & Bismark instead. By the end of WWII the battleship was nothing but an ancillary gun platform for bombarding coastal positions. So the irony is that it took an adversary to finally make Western navies realize the vision of Billy Mitchell. And you should note that Mitchell, a hero in WWI, was court martialed for being so outspoken about the U.S.'s shortsightedness with regard to a pre war defense spending that focused on outmoded weaponry for what he was certain would be an air war should we have to fight again.

I don't think the irony was lost on the Defense Department since the bombers (B-25) which bore his name were the first to strike the home islands of Japan and to do so launched from a carrier. It was their offhand apology for having court martialed a man for being right and sticking to his convictions.