DALLAS (AP) — Retired Lt. Col. Richard “Dick” Cole, the last of the 80 Doolittle Tokyo Raiders who carried out the daring U.S. attack on Japan during World War II, has died at a military hospital in Texas. He was 103.
A spokesman says Cole died Tuesday at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Robert Whetstone, a BAMC public affairs official, had no immediate additional details.
Cole, who lived in Comfort, Texas, had stayed active even in recent years, attending air shows and participating in commemorative events including April 18, 2017, ceremonies for the raid’s 75th anniversary at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.
Cole was mission commander Jimmy Doolittle’s co-pilot in the attack less than five months after the December 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.