Tribute to Doolittle Raiders.
Doolittle unit hit Japan after Pearl Harbor
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, Va. — Theweather over Arlington National Cemetery was sunny and clear, similar to the day in 1942 when Richard Cole helped change the course of American history as one of James Doolittle’s Raiders during World War II.
As he stood before the grave of his former commander, the 98-year-old former pilot, who joined a daring attack on Japan that lifted American spirits at a crucial time, said the memory is bittersweet.
Cole flew in from his home in Texas to be the grand marshal in Monday’s Memorial Day Parade in Washington and to accept a Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of the Doolittle Raiders, a group of 80 U.S. airmen whose mission into Japan on April 18, 1942, inspired Americans reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor.
As part of the dwindling ranks of surviving World War II veterans, and one of only four surviving Raiders, he said the honor is joyful but also a bit lonely.
“You’re here to pay your respects to him, but at the same time, you wish they were all still here,” Cole said last week after saluting Doolittle’s tombstone and those of some other Raiders buried nearby.
Of the 16 million Americans who fought in World War II, about 1.5 million are alive, according to the Arlington-based American Veterans Center.
The 80 U.S. airmen who volunteered for the Doolittle Raid are giants among that generation of veterans, even though the popular memory of their exploits is fading in some areas.
“It’s not a well-known story any more,” said James Roberts, president of the American Veterans Center, which is helping to coordinate a documentary film about the Raiders.
In retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle Raiders flew in 16 B-25 planes toward Japan without enough fuel to make it back in what was essentially a suicide mission that helped to launch a Japanese attack sparking the Battle of Midway, the turning point that led to American victory on the Pacific front.
Cole recalled how angry and fearful Americanswere after PearlHarbor and how, a few months later, he sawa notice inside the Columbia, S.C., tent camp where he was based that sought volunteers for “a dangerous mission.”
He and others volunteered, not knowing the plan until they were at sea aboard the USS Hornet aircraft carrier, Cole said. The pilot he had been teamed with for the mission becameill and had to drop out.
In stepped Doolittle, taking a seat with Cole in the cockpit in what would be the lead plane in the mission knownthen as “Special ProjectNo. 1.”
“It was strictly by luck,” Cole said about being teamed with the commander his squadron already idolized.
On the day of the attack, the weather was clear enough for a Japanese fishing boat to spot the USS Hornet. The Americans destroyed the boat and, fearing they had been found out, launched the mission about 200 miles farther from the Japan coast than planned.
Aboard his plane, Cole said, the crew was silent, with Doolittle relaying technical orders about the flight and a navigatorwarning everyone that they might not reach China after their bombswere dropped.
After the bombs were dropped on Tokyo and surrounding cities, the planes ran into stormy weather after nightfall over China. Doolittle ordered everyone to bail out at 9,000 feet above sea level.
“For me, that was the scariest time,” Cole said, recalling for documentary filmmakers how he jumped without knowing whether he would wind up on land or in the South China Sea.
“I pulled the (parachute) rip cord so hard … that I gave myself a black eye,” he said.
Landing in a pine tree, Cole spent the night dangling 12 feet above ground, until Chinese villagers sympathetic to the Americans rescued and helped reunite him with Doolittle.
Six of the Raiders died while trying to reach safety, including three who were captured by the Japanese and executed after being accused of shooting at Japanese citizens. The graves of two of those men, William Farrowand DeanHallmark, are in Arlington National Cemetery. Visiting them, Cole saluted and stared into the distance.
In November, the survivors toasted the memory of their fallen comrades with cognac bottled in 1896, the year Doolittle was born. They decided it would be their last reunion.