Lieutenant Harry C. McCool

Harry Clayton McCool was born in La Junta, Colorado. He was the son of Stanley O. McCool and Florence McCool. Harry had one sister Nellie.

He married Hazel Laverne Greely. The couple had three children. Robert met his wife at Oklahoma Southwestern State College.

Oklahoma Southwestern State College.

We were not able to find much information on Harry C. McCool but I was able to find his obituary. 

Harry McCool, one of Doolittle’s Raiders, dies at 84.

SAN ANTONIO – Harry C. McCool, one of the daring airmen who participated in the Doolittle raid on the Japanese homeland in World War II, died at his home Saturday, Feb. 9, of prostate cancer. He was 84.

On April 18, 1942, McCool was among the B-25 bomber crewmen, led by then-Lt. Col. “Jimmy” Doolittle, who took off from the USS Hornet for the maiden American strike on Tokyo following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor five months earlier.

McCool, then a lieutenant and the navigator of one of the 16 Army Air Force bombers, volunteered for the raid despite the slim odds for survival, said a friend, Chris Mann of Pleasanton, Texas.

McCool’s aircraft had been attacked by Japanese fighters before they could drop their bomb load, and the crew ditched over China after running out of fuel. The Chinese, engaged in a brutal fight against the Japanese occupation, helped the Americans get to safety.

Most of Doolittle’s Raiders survived the daring mission. Although it did little damage, the mission nonetheless was a significant morale boost for the United States, still struggling to recoup from Pearl Harbor and ill-prepared for waging war in Europe and Asia.

After the raid, McCool flew in 13 missions in Asia. During one, he was shot down off the coast of Burma. The British Royal Navy rescued him after he had spent three days on a raft.

His military decorations included the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Chinese military Medal of Honor, which he received in 1943.
After the war, McCool continued his military career in the Air Force and became a deputy director for the Strategic Air Command. He retired from active duty in 1966 as a lieutenant colonel.

Pat Elliot of Colorado Springs, Colorado, said her father was respected and admired.
“My father became my hero during the years when he took care of my mother, who had developed Alzheimer’s disease,” she said.
McCool was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Laverne McCool. She died in 2001.

Harry McCool, who was born on April 19, 1918, in La Junta, Colorado, met his wife at Oklahoma Southwestern State College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in science and mathematics in 1940.

He spent the last years of his career working in Hawaii in the civil service for the Navy. He retired in 1988 and moved to Air Force Village II in San Antonio, where he died.

“He was a gentleman and believed in a code of conduct and code of honor I don’t see anymore,” Elliot said.

In addition to his daughter, McCool is survived by a son, Jim McCool of Richmond, Virginia, another daughter, Peg Jensen of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a sister, Nellie Rose McCool, also of Colorado Springs, 10 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

From El Paso area - 2003

Harry McCool died in San Antonio of cancer. His ashes were scattered in each family's garden, in some Colorado mountain lakes, in the Atlantic an Pacific Ocean. In the Gulf of Mexico, the Missouri River and in the Mississippi River.

On the picture below, McCool his signature is above left.

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