SAN ANTONIO — Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. "Dick" Cole, the last living connection to a daring World War II bombing mission and a frequent visitor to Northwest Florida, died Tuesday in Texas at the age of 103. A memorial service is planned for Randolph Air Force Base in Texas with interment later at Arlington National Cemetery.

Cole was among the 80 Army Air Corps airmen who volunteered for the Doolittle Raiders, a team led by then-Lt. Col. James Doolittle to strike Japan after the Japanese laid waste to American naval power in an attack on Hawaii's Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The story of the Doolittle Raiders is woven tightly into the fabric of this area. For a little more than two weeks in March 1942, they trained at what was then Eglin Field. Later, flying 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet on April 18, 1942, the Doolittle Raiders had targets in five Japanese cities. Each plane carried four 500-pound bombs, and had been stripped of extraneous equipment to accommodate additional fuel.

While the damage inflicted by the raid was slight, it was considered a success, showing Japan was not beyond the reach of American air power.

Cole was consistently humble about his role in the raid, which included serving as Doolittle's co-pilot.

“I don’t think that the Raiders should be remembered any more than the millions of other people who took part in World War II,” Cole said during a 2018 interview at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base. Seven of the Doolittle Raiders lost their lives during the mission, either as the result of crashes, or while parachuting from their aircraft, or at the hands of the Japanese.

Cole was among the airmen who had to bail out of the B-25s after the raid, while the aircraft were en route for planned landings in China. Asked in the 2018 interview about his sharpest memory of the raid, Cole had a quick response.

“The thing I remember most is my parachute opening,” he joked.

Cole's last visit to this area came last month, when he visited Hurlburt Field, headquarters of Air Force Special Operations Command, for a 75th anniversary commemoration of Operation Thursday. Another piece of World War II history in which Cole was involved, the 1944 operation saw American air pioneers working alongside British special operations soldiers to extract British soldiers from the forests of Burma. The operation marked the birth of Air Commandos as part of the U.S. military.

Cole became the last surviving Doolittle Raider in 2016, after Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, an engineer and gunner on the mission, died in Montana at the age of 94.

In 2013, the four remaining Doolittle Raiders held their 71st — and final — public reunion in Fort Walton Beach. Cole joined Thatcher and Lt. Col. Edward Saylor for the reunion. The other then-remaining survivor, Lt. Col. Bob Hite, was ill and could not attend.

Instrumental in staging those reunions was Wes Fields, whose association with retired Master Sgt. Ed Horton, a local member of the Doolittle Raiders who died in 2008, led him to become the "security director" for the Raiders.

Fields, now with the local Tourist Development Council, remembered Cole as "just a happy-go-lucky guy."

"I always knew this day would come," Fields said, adding that Cole was "a very modest man. He never thought he was a hero."

Cole's death came just 10 days before the 77th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid. Children of the Doolittle Raiders will be here next week for a previously scheduled reunion that now, sadly, won't include Cole, Fields noted.

Also among the local people who got to know Cole is Tom Rice, owner of The Magnolia Grill in Fort Walton Beach. A retired Army first sergeant, Rice remembered Cole Tuesday as "a gracious man" who always had time to talk with people interested in his story.

"He always was so good to take time to visit with young airmen," Rice remembered.

Cole also was remembered across the Air Force on Tuesday. On its Facebook page, the Air Force called Cole "a true Air Force legend" and said the "Raiders’ legacy will always be remembered."

At Eglin AFB Tuesday, Cole was remembered as "an inspirational and historical legend. We salute you Lt. Col. Cole. Rest in peace, Sir."

Air Force Special Operations Command, headquartered at Hurlburt Field, bid farewell to Cole this way via Facebook: "We say goodbye to a true American hero ... . The last living member of the Doolittle Raiders, and an original Air Commando ... will be remembered for his grit, determination and patriotism."