Dick Cole, Last Doolittle Raider, Goes West

[A. Niemyer]

He’s back with his crew and squadron-mates at last.

https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20190409/last-doolittle-raider-dies-lt-col-richard-cole-passes-at-103?template=ampart&__twitter_impression=true

RIP, airman

[Randy Sohn]

He’s back with his crew and squadron-mates at last.


RIP, airman

Adm. Andy, guess that I'd told'ya once that when I was instructing on B-25s at Reese, our 3500th Group CO was Travis Hoover (followed Doolittle off the Hornet).

best, randy

[A. Niemyer]

Dick used to come to the AeroExpo at Flying Cloud annually. I last saw him about two year's ago. He still was "with it" and while he needed some physical assistance, he remained engaged and had that twinkle in his eye.

Yeah, when someone like Travis Hoover is the Group Commander, it's hard to even think of any "Hey, watch this" that what he did for real would ever match!

Andy

[SJ Dunham]

Col. Cole came to Air and Space when he was about 94 to talk to the docent group about the Raiders and how he got assigned to the unit. Really funny guy - I’m sorry that he’s no longer with us. He was the archetypical quiet hero.

[Randy Sohn]

like Travis Hoover

Chuckle, really interesting people. Took Col. Hoover along in the Swift once from LBB to someplace over in Oklahoma where he wanted to look at some property or something.

best, randy