Richard Cole, a retired lieutenant colonel who was the last surviving member of the Doolittle Raid, the first American strike on Japan in World War II, died Tuesday at 103.

Cole, a Dayton, Ohio, native, was part of the 80-man volunteer team that opened America’s Pacific Theater during the war. The Doolittle Raid targeted some of Japan’s most important weapons factories and military bases in and around Tokyo. Cole served as mission commander Jimmy Doolittle’s co-pilot in the April 18, 1942, raid just over four months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.