Tuesday will mark the 75th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid, a daring bombing attack upon five Japanese cities that occurred April 18, 1942. Eighty volunteer airmen flying 16 B-25 bombers, led by legendary aviator Lt. Col James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle, took off from the deck of the carrier USS Hornet early that morning and struck back at Japan in retaliation for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy on Dec. 7, 1941.
Today only one member of the Doolittle Raiders remains, 101-year-old Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole, Doolittle's co-pilot. On Tuesday at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (NMUSAF) in Dayton, Ohio, in a private ceremony that has become famous in the annals of modern aviation, Cole will turn over the silver goblet of my late father, S. Sgt. David J. Thatcher, the second-to-last surviving member of the Doolittle Raid, who passed away on June 22, 2016, at the age of 94, and make one final toast to all the Raiders who have preceded him before drinking for the last time from his standing silver goblet.
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/apr/16/the-last-silver-goblet-20170416We live on the shoulders of these great men and greatest generation
