Lieutenant Richard E. Cole

Lieutenant Richard E. Cole of Crew 01 was the last remaining Doolittle Raider alive until 09 April 2019. After the raid the five member crew bailed out over China as their plane ran out of fuel. They survived landing and were protected by the Chinese people and American Missionaries. Picture two is a part of the wreck of the plane of Crew 1 with Doolittle sittng next to it.

His father named  Frederick Burnham "Fred" Cole and his mother Mabel Louise Cole He was married with Lucia Martha “Marty” Cole the couple had 2 children, two sons.  Richard E. Cole had one brother.

United States Air Force officer, pilot, he was (co-pilot of Jimmy Doolittle - crew 1)  and one of the Doolittle Raiders during World War II, was born in Dayton, Ohio, on September 7, 1915. He was the fifth of six children of Fred and Mabel L. (Bowen) Cole. Growing up in Dayton, the home of Orville and Wilbur Wright, Dick Cole took an interest in the outdoors and aviation. 

Richard Cole was married to Lucia Martha "Marty" (Harrell) Cole, who died in 2003 at the age of 79. Richard and Marty had five children and several grandchildren.

Cole about the death of Robert Gray (Crew 03) and George Larkin (Crew 10) :

Fellow Doolittle Raider, Richard Cole, heard one of the two Eleventh Bomb Squadron B–25s taking off from Dinjan that afternoon. Cole watched the plane lift off, he “assumed with a full load of bombs.” Shortly after, he departed for China in a C–47 delivering aviation fuel. As Cole approached the Burma border at ten thousand feet, he saw “a plume of black smoke” to his right. The thin column of dense, oily smoke, scattered by seven thousand feet. He knew “it was either a plane crash or a bomb strike on a fuel depot.” As they flew over the remote jungle area, they saw it was a plane, and with no parachutes visible, knew there could be no survivors. “Cole radioed Dinjan to report the crash…[and, after returning to Dinjan] he heard the news of Gray’s death. Cole himself had flown the same B–25 plane the day prior on a mission, and Gray was “considered an excellent pilot” with over 550 hours in the B–25. The suspicious circumstances led to scuttlebutt at Dinjan, and according to Cole, “many of the pilots suspected sabotage.  - Sabotage was never proved.

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