Dolittle's Raiders By Kenneth Riege, USAFVeteran Since September 18th will mark the 74th Anniversary of the United States Air Force as its own separate branch of the military, I want to share this story of one of the most daring and heroic missions ever accomplished. The actual damage inflicted was minimal, but for a country still hurting from the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor, this raid was a shot in the arm that this country so dearly needed. I can recall after joining the Air Force in May 1985 learning about the main pioneers on aviation: the Wright Brothers (which I found interesting since I too was originally from Dayton, OH), General Billy Mitchell (WW1), General Henry “Hap” Arnold (WW2), and of course, Jimmy Doolittle (WW2). I would be remiss to not say there are many others who made an impact on the history of the Air Force and to date there are *19 Air Force Medal of Honor Recipients. *Any Army/Air Corps members who received the Medal of Honor prior to 1 July 1948 are listed with the US Army MOH numbers. Jimmy Doolittle’s MOH falls under this category.
Here I am with Lt. Colonel Richard “Dick” Cole in October 2017 at an event called Skyball in Dallas, TX. Sadly, Lt. Colonel Cole passed away in April 2019 at the age of 103. He was a true American Hero and Legend, and I am so honored to have gotten to meet him.
I am not going to go into a lot of detail about the raid itself. This I will leave to each reader to do some research of their own or to read one of the many books that have been written about this amazing event in American Military History. I love American History, and in particular our Military History, so for me to get to meet
These are pictures of the goblets that were on display at Skyball 15.
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September 2021
