The last of the Doolittle Raiders, all in their 90s, offered a final toast to their fallen comrades in Ohio on Saturday as they recalled their place in history after a day of fanfare about their 1942 attack on Japan.
“May they rest in peace,” Lt. Col. Richard Cole, 98, said before the three Raiders present sipped an 1896 cognac from specially engraved silver goblets.
The cognac was saved for the occasion after being passed down from their late commander, Lt. Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle, who was born in 1896 and died in 1993.
Three of the four surviving Raiders were greeted by flag-waving well-wishers ranging from small children to fellow war veterans.
The fourth couldn’t travel because of health problems.
In a ceremony at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton, Ohio, hundreds of people — including family members of deceased Raiders — watched as the three Raiders each called out “here” as a historian read a roll call of all 80 of the original airmen.
Museum officials estimated that some 10,000 people turned out for Veterans Day weekend events honoring the 1942 mission credited with rallying American morale and throwing the Japanese off balance — and remembered forever in the 1944 movie “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.”
More than 600 people, including Raiders widows and children, descendants of Chinese villagers who helped them and Pearl Harbor survivors were at the invitation-only ceremony Saturday evening that included the toast.
“It was what you do. . . . Over time, we’ve been told what effect our raid had on the war and the morale of the people,” Lt. Col. Edward Saylor, 93, said of the 1942 mission in an interview.
The Montana native, who now lives in Puyallup, said he was one of the lucky ones.
“There were a whole bunch of guys in World War II; a lot of people didn’t come back.”
The Associated Press
