The Last Doolittle Tokyo Raider Dies At 103

The last remaining Doolittle Raider passed away early Monday morning in San Antonio. Dayton native retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard Cole was 103 years old. Cole took part in a top secret mission to bomb Japan in 1941, just four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when 80 men took off from an aircraft carrier. They were led by Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle and soon after their mission they became known as the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders. Cole was Doolittle's co-pilot. They were on the first bomber plane to depart for Japan. In 2013, Cole recounted his experiences during WWII, and how those 80 men flying 16 B-25 Bombers were launched from the USS Hornet knowing they may not survive. “For me that was the scariest time of the whole mission,” he told WYSO. “Standing at 9,000 feet in an airplane as you knew it was going to run out of gas and you're going to have to be allowed [jump] through that little black hole to someplace you'd never been, and to some place you never planned on being