Funeral Service for Richard Cole, Doolittle Raider, Held Today

From the  Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun.

Lt. Cole was on a training mission with the 17th Bombardment Group at Pendleton, Oregon, when he heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  His group did anti-submarine patrol until February 1942, when he was told he had been transferred to Columbia, South Carolina.

While he was there, he and his group volunteered for or a mission with no known details.  He thought perhaps they would be going to North Africa.  For weeks he and the others  practiced flying maneuvers on the B-25 Mitchell, a U.S. Army Air Corps two engine bomber with a crew of five.

They practiced as if taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier in what was being called the first joint Army-Navy action.  When they finally got on an aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, they were at sea for two days before they learned that the ship and the bombers were heading towards Tokyo for some payback.

Cole was to be co-pilot for unit leader Lt.Col. Jimmy Doolittle in B-25 Mitchell bomber B-25 #40-2344.  They were to be the first to take off, and the ones with the least amount of desk space, just 467 feet.